Abstract
Herbivory is one of the important factors that influence spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in grasslands. In this study, we focused on plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) to investigate the effects of the presence of small semi-fossorial herbivores and their disturbance intensity on the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in alpine meadows across three sites in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. A random stratified paired sampling method was used to collect vegetation data, and plant species richness at both fine and coarse scales were used to estimate the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation. This study showed that the presence of plateau pikas led to higher spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in alpine meadows, which increased linearly as the disturbance intensities of plateau pikas increased. The findings of this study demonstrate that small semi-fossorial herbivores have an important impact on the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation, and present a possible approach for estimating the effect of the presence of a small semi-fossorial herbivore and its disturbance intensity on the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in grasslands.
Highlights
Spatial heterogeneity of vegetation is an important proxy for gaining insight into grassland plant productivity since it is usually positive related to plant productivity in grasslands (Bai et al, 2007; Otieno et al, 2011; Song et al, 2020)
Accounting for individual site effects, the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in the presence of plateau pikas was higher than that in their absence at each site, similar to the results from the three sites together. These results presented a general pattern regarding the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in relation to the presence of plateau pikas
An analysis of the data from the three sites or an individual site suggested that there was a linear increase in the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation with the increase in disturbance intensity of plateau pikas (Figure 3)
Summary
Spatial heterogeneity of vegetation is an important proxy for gaining insight into grassland plant productivity since it is usually positive related to plant productivity in grasslands (Bai et al, 2007; Otieno et al, 2011; Song et al, 2020). The spatial heterogeneity of vegetation is usually estimated by non-spatial statistics and spatially explicit metrics (Kolasa and Rollo, 1991; Adler et al, 2001). In contrast to non-spatial statistics, spatially explicit metrics, containing many parameters of grassland plant communities (Bangert and Slobodchikoff, 2006; Bloor et al, 2020), are considered to predict the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation because a parameter value of grassland plant communities can be used to reasonably predict another parameter value in the same area (Adler et al, 2001). The plant species richness is closely related to the plant community structure and community productivity in grasslands (Hector et al, 1999; Tilman et al, 2006; Pang et al, 2021) and varies at different spatial scales in the field (Dumbrell et al, 2008).
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