Comparison of different grazing systems on subalpine meadow of tianshan Natural Heritage

With exceptional diversity of species, Kalajun subalpine meadow is part of the Tianshan World Heritage Sites. At the end of July to early August 2014, the effect of three current grazing systems——Banning Grazing, Limiting Grazing and Grazing, on plant communities and soil nutrients were studied. And the results showed that: compared with Grazing area, the Banning Grazing area has notable higher total plant species number, vegetation coverage and aboveground biomass (P<0.05), while there was no significant change on species diversity of the community (P>0.05). Moreover, the Limiting Grazing area not only has most abundant plant species and the highest species diversity, the value of vegetation cover and aboveground biomass were also very close to the Banning Grazing area. Banning Grazing decreased the soil nutrient level, and generally, the soil nutrient level was the highest at Grazing area and the lowest at Banning Grazing area. Therefore, the Banning Grazing is not the best way to recover the subalpine meadow, and the Limiting Grazing is comparatively better on sustainable management of Kalajun subalpine meadow.