Effects of yak and Tibetan sheep grazing on soil arthropods community in an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China.

We investigated the responses of community structure of soil arthropods to yak and Tibetan sheep grazing based on a manipulated grazing experiment at the alpine meadow livestock Adaptive Management Platform, which locates in Haiyan County, Qinghai Province. The results showed that the obtained soil arthropods belonged to 26 families, 8 orders, and 4 classes, with Acaroidae and Oribatida as the dominant groups. Yak and Tibetan sheep grazing decreased the abundance but increased Shannon index, Margalef index and Pielou index of soil arthropods.