Spatial Association of Shrubs and Their Interrelation to Burrowing Site Preference of Subterranean Rodents on Dune Slope in the Otindag Sandy Land, China

Lina Jiang,Xiaohui Yang,Xiao Wang,Zhongjie Shi,Long Li

doi:10.3390/su9101729

Abstract

Rangelands worldwide have more shrubs now, and subterranean rangeland rodents show close interaction to shrubs when choosing a burrowing site. The study was conducted in Otindag Sandy Land in Inner Mongolia, China with the objective of determining the effects of slope position on spatial pattern and interaction of shrubs; how rodents choose their habitat in different slope; and shrubs and rodents influence each other. To accomplish the objective set, we used three physiographic units: Plot 1 (upper slope), Plot 2 (middle slope), and Plot 3 (lower slope), and all individual woody plants and rodent holes in the three plots were mapped. The result of the study showed that: (1) two shrub species show a random distribution trend in all three plots except an aggregated trend only at the smaller scale on the upper slope; (2) the majority of subterranean rodents preferred to select their burrowing sites under the shrub crown, and these selected shrub individuals had generally larger crown length than those unselected individuals. At the same time, the majority of these burrowing sites were located on the lower right direction. (3) The distribution of rodents holes differ across the slopes in the study area. In the three samples, the relative locations of burrowing sites to shrubs are mostly distributed down slope of shrubs. From upper slope to lower slope, this trend gradually enhanced. Our conclusion is that the increase in shrubs represents a pioneer phase in the rehabilitation of degraded sandy land ecosystems, and colonization of subterranean rangeland rodents near the shrubs is a clear indicator of stabilization of sand dunes.

Highlights

Shrubs are dominant over much of the arid and semi-arid rangelands of China, and some shrub-dominated areas are of recent origin [1,2,3]
The present paper summarizes our efforts over a one-year period in sites within the Otindag Sandy Land to quantify and explain the spatial distribution of rodent burrows and the implications of this information for rehabilitation of sandy land in Inner Mongolia
Spatial pattern of vegetation is determined by a variety of environmental factors at different scales [59,60], the zonal climate determines the vegetation distribution pattern at regional and global scale [61,62,63], while the azonal factor is one of the leading factors of vegetation distribution pattern at the landscape or finer scales [64]

Summary

Introduction

Shrubs are dominant over much of the arid and semi-arid rangelands of China, and some shrub-dominated areas are of recent origin [1,2,3]. For more than 20 years, shrub encroachment into rangelands has been recognized as a desertification indicator [4,5,6,7,8,9]. In the rangelands of Inner Mongolia, China, shrub encroachment studies have been undertaken in recent years. Otindag Sandy Land, located in southeastern Inner Mongolia, is characterized by serious aeolian desertification due to human mismanagement [18,19,20,21], in the early part of the twenty-first century, and bare or semi-bare sand dunes are widespread [22,23]. Rangeland degradation is related to climate change [24,25], even though human effort to combat desertification never stops [26,27,28]

Objectives

Methods

Findings

Conclusion