Grazing Effects on Insect Communities in Western Mongolia

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-837-0_2How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Insect diversity; desert steppe; community structure; arid ecosystems; western Mongolia

Abstract

Insect communities play a vital role in ecosystem functioning, particularly in arid and semi-arid rangelands. The Mongolian Altai region in western Mongolia encompasses a diverse array of ecosystems, characterized by its complex topography, arid climate, and traditional pastoral land use. This study assessed how insect diversity and community composition vary across habitat types under different grazing intensity. Pitfall traps were used to sample ground-dwelling insects at six paired sites (grazed vs. ungrazed) representing meadow, mountain steppe, and lakeshore habitats in Khovd Province during June and August 2022. In total, 2,560 individuals belonging to 153 species across 33 families and five insect orders were collected, with Coleoptera dominating both in richness and abundance. Statistical analysis showed no significant effects of habitat type, grazing intensity, or their interaction on insect species richness. NMDS ordination revealed limited differentiation in community composition between grazed and ungrazed sites. These results suggest that insect communities in this arid and semi-arid region may exhibit resilience to moderate grazing pressures. The findings provide baseline data for future biodiversity monitoring and can inform sustainable grazing management in fragile arid-steppe ecosystems.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Davaadorj Enkhnasan
AU  - Gerelt Gan-Ochir
AU  - Bazartseren Boldgiv
AU  - Dorjsuren Altachimeg
AU  - Purevjil Arigunsudar
AU  - Lech Karpiński
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/09/17
TI  - Grazing Effects on Insect Communities in Western Mongolia
BT  - Proceedings of the International Biological Conference in Mongolia 2025 (IBCM 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 7
EP  - 33
SN  - 2468-5747
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-837-0_2
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-837-0_2
ID  - Enkhnasan2025
ER  -