Ecosystem Service Relationships, Drivers, and Regulation Strategies in a Degraded Alpine Shrub Meadow on the Northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

作者：Dawen Qian, Bo Fan, Yuting Lan, Mengke Si, Qian Li, Xiaowei Guo · 发表于：Diversity · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.3390/d15050596 · 被引用次数：8 · 研究领域：Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology、Land Use and Ecosystem Services、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies

One of the challenges of managing grasslands sustainably is the conflict between the different ecosystem services they provide. This is especially evident in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) region, where fragile alpine ecosystems make balancing the needs of grassland conservation and development difficult. However, our current understanding of the relationships and drivers of ecosystem services in degraded alpine shrub meadows on the QTP is insufficient. To address this, we studied forage provisioning and water retention services in a degraded alpine shrub meadow in the northeastern QTP. We analyzed the changes and relationships between these services at different levels of degradation and identified those factors that influenced ecosystem service relationships. The results showed that the forage supply service and the water retention service of the alpine shrub meadow increased and decreased by 23.6% and 27.07%, respectively, due to degradation. The trade-offs between these two services varied depending on the degree of degradation, with light and moderate degradation showing a preference for water retention service, and heavy and extreme degradation showing a preference for forage supply. Water retention was constrained by forage supply and both services showed an exponential function form of decay. The physical and chemical properties of the soil in the alpine shrub meadow remained relatively stable during the degradation process, with only soil organic carbon (SOC), tot...