Species diversity and drivers of grassland communities in the mountainous areas of northern Jiangxi Province

To investigate the resources of grasslands in Jiangxi Province and identify the associated driving factors, we established sixty-one 2 m × 2 m grassland community plots in the Poyang Lake basin within mountainous areas of northern Jiangxi Province. The 61 plots were divided into three groups, namely, abandoned farmland, hillside grassland, and weed communities, and we compared the differences in species composition and examined differences in ecological stoichiometric characteristics at the species and community levels among the different community types. The results revealed that 111 species classified in 93 genera and 41 families were recorded in the study region. Although the grassland communities in this region are simple, they are characterized by clear differences in species composition compared with the other assessed community types. We detected no significant differences among the three community types with respect to the concentrations of soil total C, N, and P, hillside grassland was established to have the lowest C and N concentrations, whereas the abandoned farmland had highest P concentration. At both the species and communities levels, we detected no significant differences in plant N, or P concentrations among the three types of communities, but plant C concentration of hillside grassland is significantly high than weed land at both species and communities levels, while the plant C concentration of abandoned farmland is significantly higher than weed lands' only at species level. At both species and community levels, soil total N and P were identified as the main factors determining plant elemental conditions. The findings of this study, conducted during the summer with the aim of characterizing the grassland resources of northern Jiangxi Province, provide valuable insights and a theoretical foundation for the conservation and restoration of grassland resources in this region.