IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0081466.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of Different Grazing Intensities on Grassland Production in China: A Meta-Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Liang Yan
  • Guangsheng Zhou
  • Feng Zhang

Abstract

Background: Grazing is one of the main grassland disturbances in China, and it is essential to quantitatively evaluate the effects of different grazing intensities on grassland production for grassland carbon budget and sustainable use. Methods: A meta-analysis was conducted to reveal general response patterns of grassland production to grazing in China. We used weighted log response ratio to assess the effect size, and 95% confidence intervals to give a sense of the precision of the estimate. Grazing effects were estimated as a percentage change relative to control (%). Results: A total of 48 studies, including 251 data sets, were included in the meta-analysis. Grazing significantly decreased total biomass by 58.34% (95% CI: −72.04%∼−37.94%, CI: Confidence Interval), increased root/shoot ratio by 30.58% and decreased litter by 51.41% (95% CI: −63.31%∼−35.64%). Aboveground biomass and belowground biomass decreased significantly by 42.77% (95% CI: −48.88%∼−35.93%) and 23.13% (95% CI: −39.61%∼−2.17%), respectively. However, biomass responses were dependent on grazing intensity and environmental conditions. Percentage changes in aboveground biomass to grazing showed a quadratic relationship with precipitation in light grazing intensity treatment and a linear relationship in moderate and heavy grazing intensity treatment, but did not change with temperature. Grazing effects on belowground biomass did not change with precipitation or temperature. Compared to the global average value, grazing had greater negative effects on grassland production in China. Conclusions: Grazing has negative effects on grassland biomass and the grazing effects change with environmental conditions and grazing intensity, therefore flexible rangeland management tactics that suit local circumstances are necessary to take into consideration for balancing the demand of grassland utilization and conservation.

Suggested Citation

  • Liang Yan & Guangsheng Zhou & Feng Zhang, 2013. "Effects of Different Grazing Intensities on Grassland Production in China: A Meta-Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-9, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0081466
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0081466
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081466
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081466&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0081466?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Byrne, Anne T. & Hadrich, Joleen C. & Robinson, Brian E. & Han, Guodong, 2020. "A factor-income approach to estimating grassland protection subsidy payments to livestock herders in Inner Mongolia, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Gaohuan Liu & Zhonghe Zhao, 2018. "Analysis of Carbon Storage and Its Contributing Factors—A Case Study in the Loess Plateau (China)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-18, June.
    3. Li, Dongqing & Hou, Lingling & Zuo, Alec, 2021. "Informal institutions and grassland protection: Empirical evidence from pastoral regions in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    4. Leah L. Bremer & Neil Nathan & Clay Trauernicht & Puaʻala Pascua & Nicholas Krueger & Jordan Jokiel & Jayme Barton & Gretchen C. Daily, 2021. "Maintaining the Many Societal Benefits of Rangelands: The Case of Hawaiʻi," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-30, July.
    5. Hua Cheng & Baocheng Jin & Kai Luo & Jiuying Pei & Xueli Zhang & Yonghong Zhang & Jiaqi Tang & Qin Yang & Guojun Sun, 2021. "Vegetation Response to Goats Grazing Intensity in Semiarid Hilly Grassland of the Loess Plateau, Lanzhou, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-16, March.
    6. Yang, Fanzheng & Hou, Lingling & Xia, Fang, 2024. "Intergenerational altruism, pessimism bias on tenure insecurity, and sustainable land use: Evidence from household grassland management in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    7. Yunqing Hao & Zhengwei He, 2019. "Effects of grazing patterns on grassland biomass and soil environments in China: A meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-15, April.
    8. Gang Li & Zhi Zhang & Linlu Shi & Yan Zhou & Meng Yang & Jiaxi Cao & Shuhong Wu & Guangchun Lei, 2018. "Effects of Different Grazing Intensities on Soil C, N, and P in an Alpine Meadow on the Qinghai—Tibetan Plateau, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, November.
    9. Xuemin Gong & Yijia Wang & Tianyu Zhan & Chenxu Wang & Changjia Li & Yanxu Liu, 2023. "Advances in Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Grazing on Grassland Ecosystems in China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-16, May.
    10. Qingqing Ma & Linrong Chai & Fujiang Hou & Shenghua Chang & Yushou Ma & Atsushi Tsunekawa & Yunxiang Cheng, 2019. "Quantifying Grazing Intensity Using Remote Sensing in Alpine Meadows on Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-14, January.
    11. Hu, Yuanning & Huang, Jikun & Hou, Lingling, 2019. "Impacts of the Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy on Household Livestock Production in China: An Empirical Study in Inner Mongolia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 248-256.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0081466. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.