• The Korean Journal of Ecology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.435-448
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• 1991

Mt. paektu(altitude 2,749.6m) is ecologically important because successional processes following volcanic eurption are quite clear. We investigated plant communities with altitude know vertical distribution of plant vegetation on the north-western slope of Mt. paektu was divided into five parts; the pine-hardwood forest zone(600∼1,000m alt.), the lower coniferous forest zone (1,000∼1,500 m alt.), the upper coniferous forest and birch forest zone(1,500∼2,000 m alt.), the alpine shrub zone(2,000∼2,500 m alt.) and the alpine meadow zone(2,500∼2,749 m alt.). In particular, the alpine zone was divided into alpine shrub and alpine meadow zones and distributed up to 2,500m alt. these results reflet the adaptations of these shrubs at this altitude. But these shrubby communities disappeared on the alpinemeadow zone. In the alpine meadow zone above than 2,500m alt., some meadows, papaver radicatum var pscudoradicatum. bistorta ochotensis, chrysathemum zawadskii var. latilobum etc., were occured.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.504-520
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• 2020

Proliferation of shrubs at the expense of native forage in pastures has been associated with large changes in dry-matter intake and dietary components for grazing ruminants. These changes can also affect the animals' physiology and metabolism. However, little information is available concerning the effect of pastoral-shrub grazing on the rumen bacterial community. To explore rumen bacteria composition in grazing yaks and the response of rumen bacteria to increasing shrub coverage in alpine meadows, 48 yak steers were randomly assigned to four pastures with shrub coverage of 0%, 5.4%, 11.3%, and 20.1% (referred as control, low, middle, and high, respectively), and ruminal fluid was collected from four yaks from each pasture group after 85 days. Rumen fermentation products were measured and microbiota composition determined using Ion S5™ XL sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. Principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) and similarity analysis indicated that the degree of shrub coverage correlated with altered rumen bacterial composition of yaks grazing in alpine shrub meadows. At the phyla level, the relative abundance of Firmicutes in rumen increased with increasing shrub coverage, whereas the proportions of Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria and Verrucomicrobia decreased. Yaks grazing in the high shrub-coverage pasture had decreased species of the genus Prevotellaceae UCG-001, Lachnospiraceae XPB1014 group, Lachnospiraceae AC2044 group, Lachnospiraceae FCS020 group and Fretibacterium, but increased species of Christensenellaceae R-7 group, Ruminococcaceae NK4A214 group, Ruminococcus 1, Ruminococcaceae UCG-002, Ruminococcaceae UCG-005 and Lachnospiraceae UCG-008. These variations can enhance the animals' utilization efficiencies of cellulose and hemicellulose from native forage. Meanwhile, yaks grazed in the high shrub-coverage pasture had increased concentrations of ammonia nitrogen (NH₃-N) and branched-chain volatile fatty acids (isobutyrate and isovalerate) in rumen compared with yaks grazing in the pasture without shrubs. These results indicate that yaks grazing in a high shrub-coverage pasture may have improved dietary energy utilization and enhanced resistance to cold stress during the winter. Our findings provide evidence for the influence of shrub coverage on the rumen bacterial community of yaks grazing in alpine meadows as well as insights into the sustainable production of grazing yaks on lands with increasing shrub coverage on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.