Soil Properties of Different Alpine Shrub Grasslands in Eastern Qilian Mountains

For lasting development of the local ecosystem environment.The mainly objective of this study reported was focused on the effect of different shrub grasslands on the soil properties of alpine areas in eastern Qilian Mountains.Three alpine shrub grasslands were selected in the experimental area,including Potentilla fruticosa shrub grassland,Salix shrub grassland and Rhododendron shrub grassland.The results showed that different shrub grasslands had significantly different effects on the soil properties of the alpine region.The soil water contents of tested grasslands were ordered as Rhododendron shrub grasslandSalix shrub grasslandPotentilla fruticosa shrub grassland,the order of bulk density was Potentilla fruticosa shrub grasslandSalix shrub grasslandRhododendron shrub grassland,and the total porosity was Salix shrub grasslandRhododendron shrub grasslandPotentilla fruticosa shrub grassland.The organic matter content of Rhododendron shrub grassland was 127.638 g · kg~-1,significantly higher than that of other alpine shrub grasslands(P0.05) and that of Potentilla fruticosa shrub grassland was89.954 g · kg~-1,which was significantly lower than other patterns(P0.05).Potentilla fruticosa shrub grassland had the largest soil total N content(2.912 g · kg~-1),while Rhododendron shrub grassland had the smallest one(2.586 g · kg~-1).Correlation analysis indicated that there was a significant correlation among the factors of soil properties.