Landscape level patterns of grasshopper communities in Inner Mongolia: interactive effects of livestock grazing and a precipitation gradient
CONTEXT: Grasshoppers are a dominant herbivore assemblage globally and play an important role for ecosystem nutrient cycling. Yet, we lack a strong understanding of the relationship between grasshopper diversity and plant community composition at the landscape scale. OBJECTIVE: Our aim was to test landscape scale relationships between plant and grasshopper communities. METHODS: We used a large-scale, replicated experiment at four sites, including grazed and protected pastures across a 350 km transect and 200–400 mm precipitation gradient in the steppes of Inner Mongolia, China.