Biodiversity and Its Function Change in the Alpine Ecosystem under Human Activity
A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Diversity".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2022) | Viewed by 11542
Special Issue Editors
Interests: grassland degradation; hydrologic process; water cycle; water conservation function
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: climate change; crop model; hydrological model; agriculture; extreme climate events; machine learning
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Alpine grassland plays an important role in carbon (C) fixation and water and biodiversity conservation. Grazing is the main way for humans to use alpine grassland, but unfortunately, the degradation of alpine grasslands has been accelerated by climate change and grazing activities. Human disturbances are quick and serious, seriously threatening the fragile alpine ecosystems. The degraded alpine grassland area has reached 83% of the total available grassland area because of overgrazing, while 50–60% of degraded grasslands have lost all grazing function. Degradation of alpine grasslands is a chain reaction, which has recently drawn significant interest and become a global concern.
The subject of this Special Issue is to elucidate the vegetation, soil nutrients, soil hydrology, plant diversity, productivity, and mechanisms of alpine grassland ecosystems responding to human activity. Observational, experimental, and modeling studies are welcomed. Topics of the desired scientific articles include but are not limited to the following:
- Effects of human activity on biodiversity patterns and ecosystem processes to different grazing intensity and land-use change;
- Soil water retention and hydrology in alpine meadows under different degradation stages;
- Effects of grassland degradation on evapotranspiration and soil water infiltration in grassland;
- Net primary production of alpine meadow under different grazing intensity and land-use change;
- The effect of biodiversity on the restoration of degraded alpine ecosystems;
- Proposals to mitigate the impacts of human activity and improve environmental sustainability;
- The plant–microorganism interactions in alpine ecosystems;
- Effects of grassland degradation on phenophases;
- Soil water storage change process and mechanism under human activity.
Dr. Xiaowei Guo
Dr. Bin Wang
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- grassland
- alpine meadow
- grassland degradation
- restoration
- plant diversity
- soil water storage
- phenology
- drivers of change
- sustainable management
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