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Effects of grazing on soil ciliate community in swamp meadow.

NING Ying-zhi1*, YANG Yuan-gang1, SU Chang1, CHEN Ling-yun1, DU Guo-zhen2#br#   

  1. (1College of Life Science, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China; 2College of Life Science, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China).
  • Online:2017-06-10 Published:2017-06-10

Abstract: Soil ciliate communities were investigated in a swamp meadow in Maqu, Gannan at three levels of grazing intensity (grazing prohibition, seasonal grazing and fullyear grazing). A total of 105 species were identified, belonging to 8 classes, 17 orders, 30 families and 39 genera. The soil ciliate species diversity index was the highest under seasonal grazing, followed by grazing prohibition and the lowest under fullyear grazing. The C/P index (the ratio of species number of Colopodid ciliates to species number of Polyhymenophora ciliates) was in order of seasonal grazing < grazing prohibition < full-year grazing. The ciliate communities had higher similarity between the sites of grazing prohibition and seasonal grazing and there were larger differences of ciliate communities between the sites of fullyear grazing and grazing prohibition. Furthermore, soil moisture and organic matter content were significantly positively correlated with species number, density and diversity index (P<0.01); total phosphorus content was significantly positively correlated with density (P<0.01), species number and diversity index (P<0.05). The redundancy analysis of ciliate community composition parameters (species number, species diversity index, density) and soil environmental factors (soil temperature, moisture, pH, organic matter, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, available phosphorus and inorganic nitrogen) showed that organic matter content had the greatest impact on the community composition of soil ciliates, followed by soil moisture, and total nitrogen content.

Key words: phenotypic diversity, natural population, Phoebe chekiangensis, community structure, species diversity