Effects of grazing intensity on spatial heterogeneity of the constructive species Stipa breviflora in desert steppe.

Abstract

This study evaluated the changes of spatial distribution of the constructive species Stipa breviflora in the desert steppe under different grazing intensities (control, light, moderate, and heavy grazing) in Siziwang, Inner Mongolia. The small-scale spatial distribution of S. breviflora was measured. Results showed that population density of S. breviflora was following the order: heavy grazing (27.81 individuals·m-2) > moderate grazing (22.17 individuals·m-2) > control (11.31 individuals·m-2) > light grazing (10.76 individuals·m-2). The moderate and heavy grazing significantly increased population density of S. breviflora. According to the model fitting by semi-variance function, the population density of S. breviflora under the control, light, moderate and heavy gra-zing treatments were consistent with the exponential model, spherical model, exponential model and spherical model, respectively. Results from spatial distribution pattern analysis showed that structural ratio of S. breviflora population was control (99.7%) > heavy grazing (94.7%) > light grazing (92.7%) > moderate grazing (87.9%). Such a result indicated that the spatial autocorrelation of the four treatments was high, which were mainly affected by structural factors. In comparison, S. breviflora population structure ratio under moderate grazing treatment was the smallest, and partly affected by random factors. Based on fractal dimension analysis, spatial structure of the four treatments was good with simple spatial distribution. With the increases of grazing intensity, the spatial distribution was simpler and more homogeneous. Combined with 2D and 3D views, both light and heavy grazing changed spatial distribution of S. breviflora population from gradient distribution to patch distribution and resulted in the reduction of spatial heterogeneity.