Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Abstract
In this study, in order to take appropriate measures in accordance with the principles of ecological management, the relationship between distribution of ecological species groups of Chahar Bagh summer rangelands with soil factors and various grazing management practices was investigated. Five dominant vegetation units including reference area (exclosure), key and critical areas (pen, vicinity of village and watering point) were identified in the region, upon the range management and utilization types. Vegetation parameters including density and canopy cover percentage as well as soil properties of two depths were investigated by a random-systematic method. Clustering analysis and principle component analysis were applied to determine the ecological groups of the region as well as the effects of soil physicochemical properties on the distribution of ecological species groups using PC-ORD5 and Canoco 4.0 software. The results led to the separation of five ecological species groups from each other. In this region, the distribution of ecological species groups was affected by soil physicochemical properties (90.48%), management parameters (0.008%), and the interaction effects of these factors (10%). Among the soil physicochemical properties, clay percentage in the first depth (0.999), P content in the second depth (0.991), bulk density (-0.989), porosity (0.985), saturation percentage in the first depth (0.982), and K content in the second depth (0.996) had the highest impact on the distribution of ecological species groups, respectively.
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