The Plant Interspecific Association in the Revegetated Alpine Grasslands Determines the Productivity Stability of Plant Community Across Restoration Time on Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau
Shengnan Wu, Lu Wen, Shikui Dong, Xiaoxia Gao, Yudan Xu, Shuai Li, Quanming Dong, Kelly J. Wessell
Abstract
Grassland cultivation is the key measure for restoring "Black Beach," the extremely degraded alpine meadow in the Three River Headwater Area of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. In this study, we examined the inter-specific relationship in the vegetation community of cultivated grasslands with different restoration times through the network analysis method. The results showed that with the extension of restoration time, the development of cultivated grassland would lead to increasing neutral interactions among the plant species. The proportion of species with positive and negative associations in the community decreased, while the number of species-independent pairs increased significantly. The complexity of plant interspecific association (species network density) had more influence on community stability with the extension of recovery time, which can be used to quantify the characteristics of community structure.