title: Effects of cattle grazing on small mammal communities in the Hulunber meadow steppe.
abstract: Small mammals play important roles in many ecosystems, and understanding their response to disturbances such as cattle grazing is fundamental for developing sustainable land use strategies. However, how small mammals respond to cattle grazing remains controversial. A potential cause is that most of previous studies adopt rather simple experimental designs based solely on the presence/absence of grazing, and are thus unable to detect any complex relationships between diversity and grazing intensity. In this study, we conducted manipulated experiments in the Hulunber meadow steppe to survey small mammal community structures under four levels of grazing intensities. We found dramatic changes in species composition in native small mammal communities when grazing intensity reached intermediate levels (0.46 animal unit/ha). As grazing intensity increased, Spermophilus dauricus gradually became the single dominant species. Species richness and diversity of small mammals in ungrazed and lightly grazed (0.23 animal unit/ha) area were much higher than in intermediately and heavily grazed area. We did not detect a humped relationship between small mammal diversity and disturbance levels predicted by the intermediate disturbance hypothesis (IDH). Our study highlighted the necessity of conducting manipulated experiments under multiple grazing intensities.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Chan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Ling-Ying
authors.initials: LY
authors.lastname: Shuai
authors.affiliation: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Ping
authors.initials: XP
authors.lastname: Xin
authors.affiliation: College of Life Science and Technology, Harbin Normal University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Tao
authors.initials: ZT
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yan-Ling
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Gao
authors.initials: ZG
authors.lastname: Zeng
keywords: Diversity; Grazing; Hulunber; Intermediate disturbance hypothesis; Meadow steppe; Small mammals