Abstract
During the last few decades, there have been an increasing number of studies on grassland ecology in China, involving the classic ecology concepts or theories and the applicable ecological principles of grassland conservation or management. This paper reviews the main progress in the following aspects. (1) Research on grassland species adaptation and resistance, population dynamics and foraging behavior, and biodiversity and community stability. (2) Research on managed grassland ecosystems (grassland grazing ecology) including grazing effects on grassland ecosystem function and foraging behavior by large herbivores. (3) Global climate change and grassland processes and functioning. (4) Applied research on grassland restoration and ecosystem health assessments such as vegetation restoration, restoration of ecosystem functioning, and assessment methods. There have been significant advances in grassland ecology, including the functions of ecosystem biodiversity, the ecological stoichiometry mechanisms affecting grassland community stability, grazing regulation of plant diversity and nutrient cycling. Grassland ecologists have succeeded in making these advances through observational, experimental and theoretical studies. Nevertheless, there are still significant challenges for the grassland ecology research, including understanding of grassland spatial processes, grassland grazing and multi-functionality, integrated effects of global climate change across grassland areas, as well as the ecological methodology and experimental techniques in grassland ecology.
Highlights
The role of ecology in society has increased dramatically in importance over the past century because it providesReceived August 21, 2017; accepted January 19, 2018Grassland ecology was of practical interest in the early 1950s at that time there was limited research on general ecological aspects in China (Fig. 1)
Many current studies in grassland ecology still focus on the long-established ecological approaches from individual and population, through to community and ecosystem, involving species adaptation and resistance, population dynamics and foraging behavior, as well as biodiversity and community stability
We found only a single study has examined the response of soil fauna to livestock grazing in China[54]
Summary
Grassland ecology was of practical interest in the early 1950s at that time there was limited research on general ecological aspects in China (Fig. 1). A pioneering study of the vegetation in parts of Heilongjiang Province provided quantitative vegetation analysis for plant communities or assemblages associated with different soil types[2] This was followed by several studies on the grassland vegetation in meadow steppes and desert steppes[3,4,5,6]. Many studies on grassland ecology have addressed the scenarios of global climate change and human activities This involves the study of long-term field manipulative experiments, including warming, nitrogen deposition, precipitation alteration, and livestock grazing, conducted on various steppes. The focus of these studies has become much wider, ranging from species adaptive and functional traits, interrelationships between the same or different taxon, and multi-trophic levels (i.e., plant-plant, plant-animal and plant-animal-microbe), and biodiversity, productivity and their relationships. The established and developing hypotheses or theories, such as relationships among biodiversity-productivity-stability, optimal foraging theory, ecological stoichiometry, allometry theory, and food web and trophic cascading, have been frequently tested and refined for grassland ecosystems[11,12,13,14], indicating that grassland scientists have contributed substantially to the development of ecology
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