Alpine meadows.of the Tibet Plateau are a synanthropicpseudoclimax

摘要：

Alpine meadows.(Atlas of Tibet 1990) extent over the humid south‐eastern half of the Tibetan Plateau covering ca.450,000 km with 2‐3 cm tall golf course‐like Cyperaceae mats.The turfs of the endemic K obresia pygmaea protect the headwaters of major Asian rivers against erosion,and are the most important rangelands for the Tibetan yak pastoralists.Their distribution ranges between 38°N and 28°N.They form the earthhighest plant communities (5960 m, Miehe 1989) and occupy south‐facing pastures down to relative 800 m in the forest belt of the outer declivity of the Plateau.With respect to their large altitudinal range of nearly 3000 m and a latitudinal distribution of 1400 km the K obresia pastures show a great uniformity in structure.They are widely believed to be natural ( e.g.Song et al.2004 ) despite the overall presence of livestock.We challenge this assumption.

关键词： grazing Kobresia sedge mats Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau rangeland ecology

作者: G.Miehe S.Miehe K.Kaiser K.Wesche Zhao Xinquan Liu Jianquan

作者单位: Faculty of Geography,University of Marburg,Germany Institute of Geobotany,M artin-L uther-University Halle-Wittenberg,Germany Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology,CAS,Xining,China

会议类型: 国际会议

会议名称: 2008世界草地与草原大会

会议地点: 呼和浩特

会议语种:英文

在线出版日期: 2008-06-29（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）