Location

 Xilingol temperate grassland ecosystem research station is located in Baiyinxile Ranch,Xilingol,Inner Mongolia Autonmous Region. It geography ststion is 43º32ʹN,116º40ʹE, with an altitude of 1200 m.It belongs to Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN) and the Chinese academy of sciences in Inner Mongolia grassland ecosystem research station. It represent the typical warmly Leymus chinensis steppe ecosystem of Inner Mongolia.

Climatic

 This region is under a temperate arid and semiarid continental climate with dry-cold winter and wet-warm summer. Mean annual sunshine duration is 2617.54 h and mean annual temperature is about 0.9℃ with a mean minimum temperature in January and a mean maximum temperature in July.Mean annual precipitation is 338 mm,and mainly concentrated  in May to September,nearly 89%. Mean annual evaporation is range from 1600 to 1800 mm, with frost period of 200 d.

Vegetation and soil

 The vegetation type in this region mainly consists of typical steppe and meadow steppe.This region is dominated by Agropyron cristatum, Stipa grandis,Cleistogenes squarrosa and Carex duriuscula with community height of 50~60 cm, and coverage of 30%~40%. The soil type is Dark Chestnut soil with density of 1.09~1.35 g /cm3, total porosity of 48%~58% and field capacity of 18%~26%. The soil pH is range from 7.22 to 8.75 which belongs to alkaline - strong alkaline soil.

Observation system

 Xilingol temperate grassland ecosystem research stationis located in the warm temperate zone. Two layer conventional weather observation system and an open-path eddy covariance system were installed. At the same time, soil and plant carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are observed with static-chamber method.

Principal Investigator

Yanfen Wang

E-mail: yfwang@gucas.ac.cn