Effects of rodents activities on plant community and soil environment in alpine meadow

The ThreeRiver Headwaters Region is main part of QinghaiTibetan plateau, known as China watertower, and is the assembling region with rich biodiversities and a gene pool of plateau biology. However, the climate warming, glacier decreasing, over grazing cause the grassland to degenerate in the recent years, and highintensity rodents activities undoubtedly exacerbated the pace and process of grassland degradation. Rodent activities not only play positive role in the alpine meadow ecosystem but also play negative role in the alpine meadow ecosystem, and scientifically qualifying threshold of rodent activities is urgent. Based on field survey data in Guoluo autonomous prefecture, Qinghai province, and many documents, this study summarized the effectiveness of rodent activities on plant community and soil environment in alpine meadow, and suggested that the rational rodent population density benefited sustainable utilization of grassland resources and grassland conservation.