A six-year grazing exclusion changed plant species diversity of a Stipa breviflora desert steppe community, northern China.

ABSTRACT: Excluding grazers is one of most efficient ways to restore degraded grasslands in desert-steppe communities, but may negatively affect the recovery of plant species diversity. However, diversity differences between grazed and fenced grasslands in desert-steppe are poorly known. In a Stipa breviflora desert steppe community in Northern China, we established six plots to examine spatial patterns of plant species diversity under grazed and fenced conditions, respectively. We addressed three aspects of species diversity: (1) The logistic, exponential and power models were used to describe the species-area curve (SAR). Species richness, abundance and Shannon diversity values change differently with increasing sampling areas inside and outside of the fence. The best fitted model for SAR was the

SUBMITTER: Wang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5815336 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature