Relationships between stocking rate and species richness on alpine steppe

The research selected six plots of different grazing gradient of winter pasture in Sunan Deer Farm, and used neststyle methods to investigate the number of grassland plant communities species. Focus on the relationship between stocking rate and species richness of grassland community in Gansu wapiti grazing system on mountain grassland. The results showed that:1)Species increased gradually with the expansion of sampling area in winter pasture, among the grazing intensity gradient, the trend of species richness resulted from grazing alleviate increased, and the contribution of grazing effected on species richness enhanced. 2)The minimum sampling area of alpine grassland was 0.71-1.54 m2, and the dramatic change of species richness happened in the range of 0.16-0.32 m2 and 0.32-0.64 m2 respectively in all stocking rates. 3)Species richness showed downward trend along with increasing of stock rate, and inflection point of stocking rates was 2.45 AUMhm-2. The effect of stocking rate on species diversity was different on both sides of inflection point. That suggested 2.45 AUMhm-2 was the appropriate stocking rate on alpine grasslands. 4)The contribution of stocking rate on species richness does not work at the condition of an sampling area of more than 2.56 m2 in the pasture scale.