Grazing increases functional richness but not functional divergence in   Tibetan alpine meadow plant communities

doi:10.1007/s10531-015-0960-2

CORC > 北京大学 > 城市与环境学院

	Grazing increases functional richness but not functional divergence in Tibetan alpine meadow plant communities
	Niu, Kechang ; He, Jin-Sheng ; Zhang, Shiting ; Lechowicz, Martin J.
刊名	BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION
	2016
关键词	Community assembly Competition Foliar traits Functional diversity Grassland Leaf economic spectrum CHINESE GRASSLAND BIOMES LAND-USE INTENSIFICATION LEAF ECONOMICS SPECTRUM DIVERSITY INDEXES SPECIES-DIVERSITY ASSEMBLY PROCESSES TRAIT DIVERSITY SOIL FERTILITY PHOSPHORUS NITROGEN
DOI	10.1007/s10531-015-0960-2
英文摘要	Plant community diversity and ecosystem function are conditioned by competition among co-occurring species for multiple resources. Previous studies suggest that removal of standing biomass by grazing decreases competition for light, but coincident grazing effects on competition for soil nutrients remain largely unknown in Tibetan rangelands where grazing tends to deplete soil phosphorus availability. We measured five functional traits indicative of plant productivity and stoichiometry leaf carbon concentration (LCC), leaf nitrogen concentration (LNC), leaf phosphorus concentration (LPC), specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC) for component species of plant communities in grazed and ungrazed plots in five Tibetan alpine meadows. We examined the diversity of traits singly Rao index of functional diversity (FDrao) and in aggregate functional richness (FRic), functional divergence (FDiv), and functional evenness (FEve) in response to grazing. We tested whether foliar trait diversity increases with nutrient competition but decreases with light competition when competitive exclusion is reduced by grazing. The FDrao of LPC significantly increased under grazing, but FDrao for LCC, LNC and SLA tended to decrease. The FDrao of LDMC increased at the drier site but decreased at the wettest site. There was a strong negative association between increase in FDrao of LPC and decrease in soil nutrients, especially soil phosphorus availability. The FRic for all five traits together increased with species diversity following grazing, but neither FDiv nor FEve differed significantly between grazed and ungrazed plots at most sites. Grazing in Tibetan alpine meadows tends to increase competition for soil phosphorus while decreasing competition for light, resulting in an increase in the functional richness in grazed plant communities without any significant changes in the overall functional diversity of foliar traits. Our study highlights the potential importance of grazing mediated competition for multiple resources in alpine meadow ecosystems.; National Science Foundation of China [31370008]; National Basic Research Program of China [2013CB956304]; SCI(E); ARTICLE; kechangniu@nju.edu.cn; 12,SI; 2441-2452; 25
语种	英语
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.pku.edu.cn/handle/20.500.11897/458629]
专题	城市与环境学院
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Niu, Kechang,He, Jin-Sheng,Zhang, Shiting,et al. Grazing increases functional richness but not functional divergence in Tibetan alpine meadow plant communities[J]. BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION,2016.
APA	Niu, Kechang,He, Jin-Sheng,Zhang, Shiting,&Lechowicz, Martin J..(2016).Grazing increases functional richness but not functional divergence in Tibetan alpine meadow plant communities.BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION.
MLA	Niu, Kechang,et al."Grazing increases functional richness but not functional divergence in Tibetan alpine meadow plant communities".BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION (2016).