Asian montane rangelands are a part of the largest contiguous grassland system in the world, and support the region’s primarily livestock based economies and lifestyles. Despite this and the fact that they are facing some of the most rapid changes in climatic conditions, they are still relatively understudied. To fill this gap, we setup a grazing x climate change (warming, drought and increased rainfall) experiment at two montane rangeland sites in Spiti valley, India and Tost in the Gobi-Altai mountains of Mongolia.
The climate warming experiment included manipulations of rain, air temperature and grazing (photo credit: M. Kohli, University of Minnesota)
We found that climate and clipping interactively reduced vegetation cover and biomass but did not affect species richness. Treatment effects and their interactions varied between sites. In ungrazed plots, vegetation cover and biomass declined sharply in response to warming (18%–35%) and drought (20%–50%) at the two sites, and, surprisingly also declined slightly in response to increased rainfall (20%) at Tost. While the effects of climate treatments were largely similar in the grazed and ungrazed plots in Tost, they were larger in the ungrazed plots in Spiti.
Taken together our findings show that future changes in climate, including just over 1°C of warming, could undermine the sustainability of pastoral economies and the persistence of wildlife across Asian montane rangelands. Furthermore, grazing by herbivores will play an important role in mediating rangeland responses to climate change; thus, pasture management in concert with local pastoralists will be crucial in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change on rangelands, pastoral livelihoods and wildlife populations.
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Reference: Kohli, M., Mijiddorj, T.N., Suryawanshi, K.R., Mishra, C., Boldgiv, B. and Sankaran, M., 2020. Grazing and climate change have site‐dependent interactive effects on vegetation in Asian montane rangelands. Journal of Applied Ecology.
Picture: Montane rangelands provide livelihoods to pastoralists (photo credit: M. Kohli, University of Minnesota)