Vegetation richness, height, coverage and spatial distribution mediate grasshopper abundance in the upper reaches of Heihe River, China
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biodiversity, Ecology, Plant Science, Spatial and Geographic Information Science, Population Biology
- Keywords
- grasshopper, vegetation, spatial pattern, spatial correlation, geostatistics, upriver area of Heihe
- Copyright
- © 2017 Li et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. Vegetation richness, height, coverage and spatial distribution mediate grasshopper abundance in the upper reaches of Heihe River, China. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3485v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3485v1
Abstract
Species interactions are often context-dependent and complex, such as the grasshopper community and phytoecommunity. The adoption of grasshopper abundance and vegetation community was determined by topographical heterogeneity. However, it remains vague about how vegetation community, such as coverage abundance and height, influence the spatial distribution pattern of grasshopper abundance at the altitude gradient. Using Geostatistical methods in natural grassland of the upper reaches of Heihe River to quantitatively study the relationship of spatial correlation. A 3 years investigation was shown that 3149 grasshoppers were collected, belonging to 3 families, 10 genera, and 13 species. The semivariable function of grasshopper abundance and vegetation community followed a nonlinear model. Meanwhile, horizontal distribution of two communities was a clear flaky and plaque distribution pattern, especially at the altitude gradient. The abundance of grasshoppers is opposite to the height and coverage of vegetation and the overall followability of coverage, while the local following is consistent. Such as grasshopper abundance, the above 2750m sample with the opposite trend, the following areas are consistent. Finally, grasshoppers have the different choice on different vegetation characteristics in different directions, formed of specific trend characteristics; and the spatial distribution trend is different even with the same community indicators, formed of embedded striped patches structure.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
raw date for grasshopper and vegetation
the location of grasshopper and vegetation distribute on the alpine steppe.
