%0 Journal Article %A ZHAO Yong-hong %A LIU Xian-de %A ZHANG Xue-long %A NIU Yun %A ZHAO Wei-jun %A LIU Bing-fang %T The Spatial Distribution and Monthly Variation of Soil Moisture of Sub-alpine Shrubs in Qilian Mountains %D 2016 %R 10.11849/zrzyxb.20150280 %J JOURNAL OF NATURAL RESOURCES %P 672-681 %V 31 %N 4 %X In order to explore the spatial distribution and monthly variation of soil moisture of the main shrub types in the Qilian Mountains, permanent sample plots were set up for five shrub types in the small watershed of Pailugou of Qilian Mountains, including Caragana jubata, Salix gilashanica, Dasiphora fruticosa, Berberis diaphana and Caragana tangutica. The soil moisture at the depth layer of 0-10, 10-20, 20-30, 30-40, 40-60 cm was measured in a growing season. The results showed that: 1) Among the five shrub plots, the soil moisture differed obviously, according to the following decreasing order: Caragana jubata, Salix gilashanica, Potentilla fruticosa, Berberis diaphana and Caragana tangutica. 2) At the spatial scale of the studied small watershed of Pailugou, the soil moisture was jointly influenced by several factors, such as the elevation (precipitation), slope aspect, vegetation, and soil. This leads to the increase of soil moisture with increasing elevation (higher soil moisture at higher plot) and terrain shading effect (higher soil moisture on shaded slops than on sunny slope). 3) The degree of variation of soil moisture in the growing season can be basically classified into the low or middle intensity for all the five shrub types. The variation coefficients of soil moisture in the same soil layer basically following the decreasing order of Berberis diaphana > Caragana jubata > Salix gilashanica > Potentilla fruticosa > Caragana tangutica. %U https://www.jnr.ac.cn/EN/10.11849/zrzyxb.20150280