Dataset Information

Grazing exclusion by fencing non-linearly restored the degraded alpine grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau.

ABSTRACT: Resilience is an important aspect of the non-linear restoration of disturbed ecosystems. Fenced grassland patches on the northern Tibetan Plateau can be used to examine the resistance and resilience of degraded alpine grasslands to grazing and to a changing climate. To examine the non-linearity of restoration, we used moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a proxy for productivity during a ten-year restoration by fencing. Degraded alpine grasslands exhibited three restoration trajectories: an equilibrium in meadows, a non-linear increase across steppes, and an abrupt impulse in desert-steppes following a slight increase in productivity. Combined with weather conditions, the ten-year grazing exclusion has successfully enhanced the NDVI on the most degraded steppes, but did not do so efficiently on either meadows or desert-steppes. Warming favors the NDVI enhancement of degraded meadows, but higher temperatures limited the restoration of degraded steppes and desert-steppes. Precipitation is necessary to restore degraded alpine grasslands, but more precipitation might be useless for meadows due to lower temperatures and for desert-steppes due to limitations caused by the small species pool. We suggest that detailed field observations of community compositional changes are necessary to better understand the mechanisms behind such non-linear ecological restorations.

SUBMITTER: Wu J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5680212 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Grazing exclusion by fencing non-linearly restored the degraded alpine grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau.

Wu Jianshuang J Feng Yunfei Y Zhang Xianzhou X Wurst Susanne S Tietjen Britta B Tarolli Paolo P Song Chunqiao C

Scientific reports 20171109 1

Resilience is an important aspect of the non-linear restoration of disturbed ecosystems. Fenced grassland patches on the northern Tibetan Plateau can be used to examine the resistance and resilience of degraded alpine grasslands to grazing and to a changing climate. To examine the non-linearity of restoration, we used moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as a proxy for productivity during a ten-year restoration by fencing. Degraded a ...[more]

PMID: 29123187

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Dataset Information

Grazing exclusion by fencing non-linearly restored the degraded alpine grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau.

Publications

Grazing exclusion by fencing non-linearly restored the degraded alpine grasslands on the Tibetan Plateau.

Similar Datasets

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