Changes in plant community structure in relation to climate change and restoration plot areas in Mongolia

Abstract

Mongolia has one of the strongest climate warming signals on Earth, and over 40% of the human population depends directly or indirectly on pastoral livestock production for their livelihoods. Thus, climate-driven changes in rangeland production will likely have a major effect on pastoral livelihoods (Fernandez-Gimenez et al. 2015). The loss of species de­pendent mostly on rainfall has resulted in adverse changes in the botanical composition of the steppes (Gunin et al. 1999). Summer season in 2015 was completely dry until middle of July and, had not enough vegetation cover as last 15 years. The purpose of this study is to check plant community dynamics in Mongolia in relation to climate change in 2014 and 2015. The study sites were selected in mountain-steppe habitat in central Mongolia. In the 2014, there have been registered 81 plant species of 56 genera of 25 families on the investigated sites and, occurred 57 plant species of 44 genera of 21 fami­lies in the 2015. It is concluded that the abundance and richness of plants are directly connected to heavily affect by the climatic factor, i.e. amount of precipitation during growing season. As a same like result of climate change, in Mongolian land is going become desertification, and each spring, soil particles from Mongolia are swept up by a cold air mass into the atmosphere and blasts into south east China, Korea and Japan. The Koreans call this phenomenon the “Fifth season” or “Yellow sand”, and the Chinese call it “Yellow dragon”.