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

doi:10.17521/cjpe.2018.0289

Abstract

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

TANG Yong-Kang, WU Yan-Tao, WU Kui, GUO Zhi-Wei, LIANG Cun-Zhu, WANG Min-Jie, CHANG Pei-Jing. Changes in trade-offs of grassland ecosystem services and functions under different grazing intensities[J]. Chin J Plant Ecol, 2019, 43(5): 408-417.

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URL: https://www.plant-ecology.com/EN/10.17521/cjpe.2018.0289

https://www.plant-ecology.com/EN/Y2019/V43/I5/408

Figures/Tables 5

Fig. 1 An illustration of monthly mean air temperature and precipitation of Xilinhot from 2016 to 2017.

Fig. 2 An illustration of trade-offs between ecosystem services (ES)(Bradford & D’Amato, 2012; Lu et al., 2014).

Fig. 3 Variations of the ecosystem services (functions) of the studied grassland under different grazing intensities (mean + SE). The same lowercase letter means no significant different between grazing intensities (p > 0.05). CK, control; LG, light grazing; MG, moderate grazing; HG, heavy grazing.

Fig. 4 Scatter plot matrices of paired ecosystem services (functions) in 2017. CK, control; LG, light grazing; MG, moderate grazing; HG, heavy grazing. GER, grassland evapotranspiration rate; GP, grassland net growth production; NPR, community net photosynthetic rate; SOC, soil organic carbon; SRR, soil respiration rate; SWC, soil water content; SWI, Shannon-Wiener index.

Fig. 5 Radar plots of trade-offs among multi-ecosystem services (functions)(A) and Radar plots of the ES values (B) of multi-ecosystem services (functions) for the studied grassland under grazing gradients. CK, control; LG, light grazing; MG, moderate grazing; HG, heavy grazing. GER, grassland evapotranspiration rate; GP, grassland net growth production; NPR, community net photosynthetic rate; SOC, soil organic carbon; SRR, soil respiration rate; SWC, soil water content; SWI, Shannon-Wiener index.

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