Net primary productivity (NPP) is an important indicator for grassland resource management and sustainable development. In this paper, the NPP of Sichuan grasslands was estimated by the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model. The results were validated with in situ data. The overall precision reached 70%; alpine meadow had the highest precision at greater than 75%, among the three types o...

Alpine grassland of the Tibetan Plateau is an important component of global soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, but insufficient field observations and large spatial heterogeneity leads to great uncertainty in their estimation. In the Three Rivers Source Region (TRSR), alpine grasslands account for more than 75% of the total area. However, the regional carbon (C) stock estimate and their uncertai...

The ecophysiological response of an alpine grassland to recent climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration was investigated with a new strategy to go back in time: using a time-series of Capra ibex horns as archives of the alpine grasslands’ carbon isotope discrimination (D). From the collection of the Natural History Museum of Bern, horns of 24 males from the population of the ...

The relationships between cover and AGB for the dominant and widely distributed alpine grasslands on the northern Tibetan Plateau is still not fully examined. The objectives of this study are to answer the following question: (1) How does aboveground biomass (AGB) of alpine grassland relate to plant cover at different spatial scales? (2) What are the major biotic and abiotic factors influencing...

Livestock grazing has the potential to substantially alter carbon (C) storage in grassland ecosystem. In this study, we evaluated the soil-plant system C (0-30cm) under three different grazing intensities by yaks (light: 1.2, moderate: 2.0, and heavy: 2.9 yaks/ha) in alpine meadow on the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Soil organic C at 0-30cm depth and total plant components C increased from light gr...

1. Climate change and extreme events, such as drought, threaten ecosystems worldwide and in particular mountain ecosystems, where species often live at their environmental tolerance limits. In the European Alps, plant communities are also influenced by land-use abandonment leading to woody encroachment of subalpine and alpine grasslands. 2. In this study, we explored how the forest-grassland ec...

Phytomass was measured and net potential productivity estimated for normal climatic conditions on the Otago rainshadow mountains. Seven tall snow tussock grasslands were compared with lower-statured cushion, herbfield and short grassland communities. Total phytomass ranged from c. 5-9 Kg m (22 000-40000 Kcal m) in tall tussock and c. 2-4 Kg m (8100-16500 Kcal m) in cushion, herbfield or short g...

Introduction Conclusions References

Tall alpine herb field is largely absent from the Tasmanian alpine zone. This absence has been attributed to marsupial grazing. Small islands in the upper Ouse River valley are partly dominated by Craspedia paludicola, a showy tall alpine herb. The herbs dominate on the upstream ends of the islands. The surrounding vegetation on the banks is mainly grassland. The tall herbs are a very minor ele...

To explore grazing effects on carbon fluxes in alpine meadow ecosystems, we used a paired eddy-covariance (EC) system to measure carbon fluxes in adjacent fenced (FM) and grazed (GM) meadows on the Tibetan plateau. Gross primary productivity (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Re) were greater at GM than FM for the first two years of fencing. In the third year, the productivity at FM increased to ...