Grazing significantly decreased
aboveground biomass by
48.48%–59.44% compared to GE (P<0.05); however,
there were no significant
differences between grazing methods (Fig. 1a). The belowground biomass
tended to decline with increasing soil depth, and the biomass at the
0–10 cm depth was significantly higher than that of the other soil
layers in all methods (Fig. 1b). MG and RG significantly reduced the
root biomass at each soil layer at a depth of 0–40 cm, and CG
significantly reduced the root biomass at 10–30 cm depth
(P<0.05, Fig. 1b). Grazing significantly decreased the total
root biomass at 0–40 cm soil depth, while
MG and RG decreased the total root
biomass significantly compared to the reduction caused by CG
(P<0.05, Fig. 1b). The
root/shoot ratio (R/S) of 0–10
cm was significantly higher than that of 10–40 cm depth in all methods,
and the R/S of CG was significantly higher than that of MG and RG
(P<0.05, Fig. 1c).
Compared with GE, R/S increased
by 55.98% in CG and decreased by 52.96%
and
37.14% in MG and RG, respectively
(Fig. 1c).
FIGURE 1 Aboveground biomass (a), root biomass in 0–40 soil
layers (b), and the root/shoot ratio (c). Note: Different capital
letters indicate significant differences (P<0.05) between
different soil layers for the same method; different lowercase letters
indicate significant differences
(P<0.05) between the same soil layers for different methods.
Values are represented as mean ± SE.
3.2 Variation of soil