The effects of large herbivore grazing on meadow steppe plant and insect diversity

Abstract

Summary The interactions between adjacent trophic levels are essential for ecosystem functioning and stability. Grazing by domestic herbivores is an essential interaction in grasslands, but little information is available on the nature of relationship between plant and insect diversity under grazing by large herbivores. We examined the effects of large herbivores on the relationship between plant and insect diversity with five grazing treatments (control, cattle, goat, sheep and a mixture of the three grazing types) across three plant diversity levels (low: 4–5 species, intermediate: 8–9 species and high: 15–17 species) in a meadow steppe. We found that the grazing treatments did not significantly affect plant species richness, but reduced plant biomass, plant height and cover. Grazers affected variation in plant height differently at different plant diversity levels, and this variation increased at the low plant diversity level and decreased at the high plant diversity level after grazing. A similar pattern was observed for insect species richness: grazing had a positive impact at the low plant diversity level, but had a negative impact at the high plant diversity level. In the absence of grazing, insect species richness was positively associated with plant species richness, but it decreased with increasing plant diversity in the grazing treatments. This was attributed to strong responses of insect species richness to plant height heterogeneity under grazing by large herbivores, implying that plant structural heterogeneity is more important than plant diversity in influencing insect diversity in grazed grasslands. Synthesis and applications. Grazing by large herbivores may reverse the positive relationship between plant diversity and insect diversity by modifying plant structural heterogeneity. Therefore, the spatial heterogeneity of vegetation structure should be given more attention in future work on plant–insect interactions. This study further highlights the importance of using large herbivore grazing in management actions, not only to maintain diversity but also to mediate trophic interactions in grasslands.