N deposition can accelerate the degradation succession from grasses- and
sedges-dominated plant communities into forbs-dominated ones in
overgrazed alpine grassland systems on Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau
Abstract
Alpine grasslands are sensitive to grazing and atmospheric deposition of
nitrogen (N). With the increase of N deposition, experimental
investigations of the effects of grazing on alpine grassland vegetation
with the background of N deposition are scarce. In this study, we
examined the effects of overgrazing and overgrazing with N deposition on
eco-physiologies of alpine grassland plants at the functional group
level. We found that both overgrazing and overgrazing with N deposition
obviously changed species composition and the dominance of three plant
functional groups (PFGs) in alpine meadow and alpine steppe. Under
overgrazing and overgrazing with N deposition treatment, forb tended to
be predominant in the whole plant community, while grass and sedge
dominance was obviously decreased. In addition, we found that the
underlying eco-physiological processes that lead to forb-dominant were
different under overgrazing and overgrazing with N deposition.
Overgrazing with N deposition obviously tended to increase forb
dominance both directly by selective herbivory and indirectly by
enhancing forb photosynthetic capacity. Our results suggested that
long-term overgrazing with N deposition will lead to a more favorable
living environment for forbs, making the grassland community of alpine
grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau likely shift to forb-dominant
in the future.