Effect of Grazing on Soil Carbon and Nitrogen in Alpine Madow, Eastern of Tibetan Plateau

As the grassland ecosystem in the Tibetan Plateau is very fragile, overgrazing likely leads to more serious damages to it than other ecosystems. In the past 30 years, 37% of the alpine meadows have been heavily damaged by grazing causing degradation of native vegetation, a decline in species richness and feed value, and more seriously soil erosion (Six et al. 2004). The impact of grazing on alpine grasslands appears to be hysteresis, as the soil needs more time to recover than the vegetation. So analysing the effect of grazing intensity on soil characteristics is an important way to reveal how grazing influenced grassland ecosystem. Although much research about grazing effects on nutrients, immobilization of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) in soils and soil microbes have been done in different terrestrial environments, similar effort has rarely focused on the Tibetan Plateau. In this study, soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (STN) in 0-30 cm soil depth were measured in the alpine meadow at the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, to determine suitable grazing intensity from the viewpoints of soil health and fertility, and providing a scientific basis for guiding the reasonable use of the alpine meadow.