title: Plant functional diversity and species diversity in the Mongolian steppe.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Mongolian steppe is one of the most important grasslands in the world but suffers from aridization and damage from anthropogenic activities. Understanding structure and function of this community is important for the ecological conservation, but has seldom been investigated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In this study, a total of 324 quadrats located on the three main types of Mongolian steppes were surveyed. Early-season perennial forbs (37% of total importance value), late-season annual forbs (33%) and late-season perennial forbs (44%) were dominant in meadow, typical and desert steppes, respectively. Species richness, diversity and plant functional type (PFT) richness decreased from the meadow, via typical to desert steppes, but evenness increased; PFT diversity in the desert and meadow steppes was higher than that in typical steppe. However, above-ground net primary productivity (ANPP) was far lower in desert steppe than in the other two steppes. In addition, the slope of the relationship between species richness and PFT richness increased from the meadow, via typical to desert steppes. Similarly, with an increase in species diversity, PFT diversity increased more quickly in both the desert and typical steppes than that in meadow steppe. Random resampling suggested that this coordination was partly due to a sampling effect of diversity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results indicate that desert steppe should be strictly protected because of its limited functional redundancy, which its ecological functioning is sensitive to species loss. In contrast, despite high potential forage production shared by the meadow and typical steppes, management of these two types of steppes should be different: meadow steppe should be preserved due to its higher conservation value characterized by more species redundancy and higher spatial heterogeneity, while typical steppe could be utilized moderately because its dominant grass genus Stipa is resistant to herbivory and drought.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Guofang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Xiufang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Duo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Xuehua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Indree
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tuvshintogtokh
authors.forename: Bayart
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Mandakh
authors.forename: Zhenying
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dong
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods; D008986:Mongolia; D018521:Plant Physiological Phenomena; D010944:Plants / Q000145:classification; D012621:Seasons