Grazing effects on the nutritive value of dominant species in steppe grasslands of northern China

BMC Ecology

Table 2 Effects of various sources of variation on forage nutritive value

Source of variation	df	CP (crude protein)						EE (ether extract)						NDF (neutral detergent fiber)
		L. chinensis		Artemisia spp.		C. duriuscula		L. chinensis		Artemisia spp.		C. duriuscula		L. chinensis		Artemisia spp.		C. duriuscula
		F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P
Year	2	12.4	0.000	1.1	0.35	0.9	0.414	4.4	0.017	17.6	0.000	13.1	0.000	0.9	0.407	2.0	0.152	1.3	0.273
Season	1	23.9	0.000	8.8	0.004	12.2	0.001	0.4	0.55	1.5	0.231	0.5	0.488	13.0	0.001	15.2	0.000	6.7	0.012
Treatment	4	14.8	0.000	6.1	0.000	7.0	0.000	0.4	0.802	0.2	0.945	0.8	0.541	3.0	0.026	0.4	0.844	0.9	0.487
Year × season	2	4.2	0.020	0.1	0.931	0.2	0.826	0.1	0.878	0.6	0.558	0.3	0.721	1.0	0.38	0.2	0.816	0.1	0.943
Year × treatment	8	4.2	0.001	0.5	0.817	1.8	0.092	1.7	0.127	0.4	0.908	0.5	0.821	1.2	0.332	0.5	0.845	0.8	0.624
Season × treatment	4	2.5	0.054	0.3	0.872	0.1	0.971	1.0	0.393	0.4	0.807	0.4	0.833	0.2	0.938	0.6	0.666	0.6	0.645
Year × season × treatment	8	1.0	0.442	0.3	0.974	1.3	0.238	0.8	0.636	0.9	0.525	0.3	0.961	1.6	0.138	0.6	0.772	0.9	0.516

Source of variation	df	ADF (acid detergent fiber)						Ca (calcium)
		L. chinensis		Artemisia spp.		C. duriuscula		L. chinensis		Artemisia spp.		C. duriuscula
		F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P	F	P
Year	2	1.8	0.178	1.7	0.189	4.9	0.011	26.0	0.000	1.2	0.297	11.6	0.000
Season	1	11.1	0.001	10.6	0.002	27.1	0.000	18.1	0.000	1.3	0.257	8.2	0.006
Treatment	4	1.4	0.242	1.4	0.247	0.5	0.717	1.3	0.263	0.6	0.644	1.1	0.358
Year × season	2	0.7	0.518	0.6	0.536	1.6	0.214	1.9	0.155	0.1	0.871	0.9	0.403
Year × treatment	8	1.7	0.129	1.2	0.32	0.6	0.81	1.2	0.33	1.1	0.347	0.3	0.961
Season × treatment	4	0.5	0.76	1.0	0.42	0.3	0.893	0.6	0.69	0.9	0.491	0.7	0.567
Year × season × treatment	8	0.4	0.927	0.6	0.813	0.8	0.601	1.0	0.447	1.2	0.343	0.8	0.57

P represents probability values for significant differences; DF is the degrees of freedom

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