Plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands

Grazing exclusion has been proved to be an effective approach for naturally restoring degraded rangelands. Still, the effect of this management practice on plant community composition and structure is ambiguous, especially under prolonged and repeated drought events. Here, we investigated the respon...

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Autores principales:	Yacine Kouba, Saifi Merdas, Tewfik Mostephaoui, Badreddine Saadali, Haroun Chenchouni
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Elsevier 2021
Materias:	Mediterranean drylands Alpha and beta diversity Rangelands Grazing exclusion Indicator plant species Ecology QH540-549.5
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/6255a200ebf44f7dace94e83cdecc279
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:6255a200ebf44f7dace94e83cdecc2792021-12-01T04:28:55ZPlant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands1470-160X10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106910https://doaj.org/article/6255a200ebf44f7dace94e83cdecc2792021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X20308499https://doaj.org/toc/1470-160XGrazing exclusion has been proved to be an effective approach for naturally restoring degraded rangelands. Still, the effect of this management practice on plant community composition and structure is ambiguous, especially under prolonged and repeated drought events. Here, we investigated the responses of community composition (i.e. incidence-based) and structure (i.e. abundance-based) to short-term sheep grazing exclusion under severe drought episode in the arid steppes of Alfa-grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) with a long evolutionary history of grazing. Individual species responses were tested based on species occurrence and abundance in either grazed or grazing-excluded steppes. Besides, indicator species analysis was used to identify species indicative of grazing-excluded steppes. Likewise, incidence-based and abundance-based α-diversity, β-diversity and functional groups’ diversities were quantified using Hill Numbers and compared between the two steppe managements types. Under severe drought conditions, sheep grazing exclusion allowed the apparition of a large number of increasers, colonizers, and native indicator plant species. It also improved the size of regional species pool and increased overall incidence-based and abundance-based α-diversity. Moreover, grazing exclusion decreased the abundance-based β-diversity at local scale but increased it at landscape scale. The incidence-based β-diversity significantly decreased at the landscape scale. Grazing exclusion enabled a significant spatial structuration of abundance-based β-diversity components by maintaining high balanced variation in species abundance at large spatial scale and greater abundance-gradient at fine-scale. Our results suggest that the implementation of short-term grazing exclusion in arid steppes would be the appropriate management practice for vegetation and habitat during prolonged droughts since it permits the recovery of native plant species and affects positively the size of the regional species pool, the overall incidence- and abundance-based α-diversity as well as the abundance-based β-diversity (chiefly at landscape scale).Yacine KoubaSaifi MerdasTewfik MostephaouiBadreddine SaadaliHaroun ChenchouniElsevierarticleMediterranean drylandsAlpha and beta diversityRangelandsGrazing exclusionIndicator plant speciesEcologyQH540-549.5ENEcological Indicators, Vol 120, Iss , Pp 106910- (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Mediterranean drylands Alpha and beta diversity Rangelands Grazing exclusion Indicator plant species Ecology QH540-549.5
spellingShingle	Mediterranean drylands Alpha and beta diversity Rangelands Grazing exclusion Indicator plant species Ecology QH540-549.5 Yacine Kouba Saifi Merdas Tewfik Mostephaoui Badreddine Saadali Haroun Chenchouni Plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands
description	Grazing exclusion has been proved to be an effective approach for naturally restoring degraded rangelands. Still, the effect of this management practice on plant community composition and structure is ambiguous, especially under prolonged and repeated drought events. Here, we investigated the responses of community composition (i.e. incidence-based) and structure (i.e. abundance-based) to short-term sheep grazing exclusion under severe drought episode in the arid steppes of Alfa-grass (Stipa tenacissima L.) with a long evolutionary history of grazing. Individual species responses were tested based on species occurrence and abundance in either grazed or grazing-excluded steppes. Besides, indicator species analysis was used to identify species indicative of grazing-excluded steppes. Likewise, incidence-based and abundance-based α-diversity, β-diversity and functional groups’ diversities were quantified using Hill Numbers and compared between the two steppe managements types. Under severe drought conditions, sheep grazing exclusion allowed the apparition of a large number of increasers, colonizers, and native indicator plant species. It also improved the size of regional species pool and increased overall incidence-based and abundance-based α-diversity. Moreover, grazing exclusion decreased the abundance-based β-diversity at local scale but increased it at landscape scale. The incidence-based β-diversity significantly decreased at the landscape scale. Grazing exclusion enabled a significant spatial structuration of abundance-based β-diversity components by maintaining high balanced variation in species abundance at large spatial scale and greater abundance-gradient at fine-scale. Our results suggest that the implementation of short-term grazing exclusion in arid steppes would be the appropriate management practice for vegetation and habitat during prolonged droughts since it permits the recovery of native plant species and affects positively the size of the regional species pool, the overall incidence- and abundance-based α-diversity as well as the abundance-based β-diversity (chiefly at landscape scale).
format	article
author	Yacine Kouba Saifi Merdas Tewfik Mostephaoui Badreddine Saadali Haroun Chenchouni
author_facet	Yacine Kouba Saifi Merdas Tewfik Mostephaoui Badreddine Saadali Haroun Chenchouni
author_sort	Yacine Kouba
title	Plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands
title_short	Plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands
title_full	Plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands
title_fullStr	Plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands
title_full_unstemmed	Plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands
title_sort	plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/6255a200ebf44f7dace94e83cdecc279
work_keys_str_mv	AT yacinekouba plantcommunitycompositionandstructureundershorttermgrazingexclusioninsteppicaridrangelands AT saifimerdas plantcommunitycompositionandstructureundershorttermgrazingexclusioninsteppicaridrangelands AT tewfikmostephaoui plantcommunitycompositionandstructureundershorttermgrazingexclusioninsteppicaridrangelands AT badreddinesaadali plantcommunitycompositionandstructureundershorttermgrazingexclusioninsteppicaridrangelands AT harounchenchouni plantcommunitycompositionandstructureundershorttermgrazingexclusioninsteppicaridrangelands
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Plant community composition and structure under short-term grazing exclusion in steppic arid rangelands

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