Journal
EURASIAN SOIL SCIENCE
Volume 51, Issue 12, Pages 1440-1446Publisher
PLEIADES PUBLISHING INC
DOI: 10.1134/S1064229318130045
Keywords
The Eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; Ruoergai wetland; meadow degradation; soil physical properties; soil chemical properties; change mechanism
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31170319]
- Key Project of the Education Department of Sichuan Province [16ZA0322]
- Project of Mianyang Normal University [07119713, QD2015B07 2015A01, XYCXXM201710]
- Sichuan Science and Technology Program [2018JY0244]
- Key project of Sichuan Education Department [18ZA0266]
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Soil moisture, nutrients and environmental conditions have extremely vital effects on vegetation growth and microbial activities in terrestrial ecosystems. To study the changes of soil physical and chemical properties as affected by degradation along the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, using the largest wetland in Ruoergai as the research sample for two consecutive years, we tested the soil bulk density, the soil moisture content, the pH value, the content of organic C, total N and total P of 0 similar to 20 cm and 20 similar to 40 cm in different degradation degree (light, moderate, serious and non-degraded alpine meadow). The resultsshowthat: (1) Degradation had profound effects on the soil physical properties and chemical properties. with the intensification of the alpine meadow degradation in the eastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and soil water content decreased significantly but soil bulk density increased significantly. (2) the soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, total phosphorus contents and soil water content increased with the increase of soil depth, however, the soil bulk density show the opposite regular. (3) The correlation analysis indicated that there was an extremely significant positive correlation between soil organic carbon and total nitrogen, total phosphorus, soil water, and the correlation coefficients were 0.822, 0.907 and 0.885 respectively (P < 0.01). There was an extremely significant positive relationship between the pH and the soil bulk density (r = 0.488, p < 0.01), while a significant negative relationship between pH and soil water (r = -0.387, p < 0.05). Overall, these results suggested that soil degradation not only changed the soil physical properties but also affected the soil chemical properties indirectly. Protecting surface vegetation and reducing wind erosion could be a good way to curb degradation.
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