Patterns and drivers of the belowground bud bank in alpine grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Wencheng Li; Aiping Huang; Tiancai Zhou; Miao Liu; Sujie Ma; Ningning Zhao; Xiangtao Wang; Jian Sun

doi:10.3389/fpls.2022.1095864

Patterns and drivers of the belowground bud bank in alpine grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Jan 18:13:1095864. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2022.1095864. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Wencheng Li^{1

2

3

4}, Aiping Huang^{2

5}, Tiancai Zhou², Miao Liu⁵, Sujie Ma^{4

6}, Ningning Zhao^{3

4}, Xiangtao Wang^{4

6}, Jian Sun²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Alpine Vegetation Ecological Security, Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry University, Nyingchi, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³ College of Resources and Environment, Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry University, Nyingchi, China.
⁴ Qiangtang Alpine Grassland Ecosystem Research Station (jointly built with Lanzhou University), Tibet Agricultural and Animal Husbandry University, Nyingchi, China.
⁵ College of Grassland Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China.
⁶ College of Animal Science, Tibet Agricultural and Animal Husbandry University, Nyingchi, China.

Abstract

Introduction: In grassland ecosystems dominated by asexual plants, the maintenance, renewal, and resistance of plant populations to disturbance are more dependent on the belowground bud bank (BBB). However, the response of the BBB to environmental factors in the alpine grassland of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is still unknown.

Methods: Therefore, a transect survey was conducted to measure the size and scale of BBB and 21 factors in the alpine grassland of the QTP. In addition, the critical driving factors of BBB were screened by boost regression tree analysis, and a structural equation model (SEM) was employed to express the path coefficients of the key factors on the BBB size.

Results: The results showed that BBB size had no significant geographical pattern in the QTP, and the BBB size was mainly accounted for by soil leucine aminopeptidase (LAP, 17.32%), followed by Margalef and Shannon -Wiener indices of plants (12.63% and 9.24%, respectively), and precipitation (9.23%). SEM further indicated significant positive effects of plant diversity (scored at 0.296) and precipitation (scored at 0.180) on BBB size, and a significant negative effect of LAP (scored at 0.280) on BBB size.

Discussion: Generally, the findings allow for better understanding of the regulated mechanisms of BBB size and the importance of the role of bud bank in the restoration of the grassland ecosystem.

Keywords: Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; alpine grasslands; bud bank; clonal plants; ecological restoration; vegetation reproduction.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42161012, 32271774); the Natural Science Foundation of Tibet Autonomous Region (XZ202101ZR0114G); the Central Government Guides Local Projects of China (XZ202101YD0016C): Fund Project for Key Laboratory of Alpine Vegetation Ecological Security (STAQ-2021Y-12); and the Fund Project for Central and Local Universities in 2022 (KY2022ZY-04).