LAUSR

Abstract Grazing, as the main land use of grasslands, is a key factor affecting the supply of ecosystem services 1 (ESs) as well as the relationships between ESs. Using four grazing intensities, including control check, light grazing, moderate grazing, and heavy grazing, this paper quantified eight key ESs, including biodiversity, herbage intake, herbage quality (herbage crude protein content), climate regulation (soil organic carbon density), soil mineralization nitrogen, soil conservation (aboveground biomass), wind prevention and sand fixation (belowground biomass), and soil erosion prevention(litter biomass), in typical grassland areas of Inner Mongolia. Structural equation models were used to illustrate the impact of grazing on ESs through biodiversity, and the root mean square error was used to quantify the level of trade-offs for ES pairs. The results of this study indicated that grazing intensity (GI) significantly affected all ESs (p