Chin J Plant Ecol ›› 2019, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (5): 408-417.DOI: 10.17521/cjpe.2018.0289

• Research Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Changes in trade-offs of grassland ecosystem services and functions under different grazing intensities

TANG Yong-Kang1,2,WU Yan-Tao1,WU Kui3,GUO Zhi-Wei1,LIANG Cun-Zhu1,*(),WANG Min-Jie1,CHANG Pei-Jing2   

  1. 1. Faculty of Ecology and Environment, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010021, China
    2. Alxa League Meteorological Bureau, Alxa, Nei Mongol 750300, China
    3. Xilinhot National Climate Observing Station, Xilinhot, Nei Mongol 026000, China
  • Received:2020-08-09 Accepted:2019-05-12 Online:2019-05-20 Published:2019-10-18
  • Contact: LIANG Cun-Zhu
  • Supported by:
    Supported by the National Key R&D Program of China(2016YFC0500503);The Science and Technology Project of Nei Mongol Autonomous Region(20140409)

Abstract: Aims The Nei Mongol Steppe plays an important role for livestock production, and it has been one of the green ecological shelters for Northern China. Enhancing some ecosystem services (provisioning services) in managing the ecosystems may causes reductions of other services, such as regulating and supporting services. The knowledge on how grazing intensity influence the trade-offs is lacking. Methods In order to find out the optimized grazing regimes, we conducted an experiment on a typical steppe in Xinlin Gol with four grazing intensities (no grazing, light grazing, moderate grazing and heavy grazing) in the Nei Mongol Steppe. Important findings Our results showed that: synergetic, trade-offs and no relationships among different ecosystem services existed in all treatments on the managed steppe system. The trade-offs relationship was found between soil respiration rate and net plant biomass growth, and between biodiversity and net photosynthetic rate. However the synergetic relationships were observed between net plant biomass growth and soil water content, between net plant growth biomass and net photosynthetic rate, and also between grassland evapotranspiration rate and biodiversity. The results indicated soil organic carbon was not related to other ecosystem services and functions. Grazing could weaken the conflicts among the ecosystem services. Moderate grazing intensity maximumize ecosystem services and functions.

Key words: ecosystem service, ecosystem function, trade-off analysis, typical steppe, grazing intensity