A Review of Village Ecosystem Structure and Stability: Implications for the Karst Desertification Control

Abstract

Villages are places where people gather and live. Due to economic and social development, the irrational behavior of the population has led to an imbalance in the village structure and has threatened the stability of the village ecosystem, resulting in the deterioration of the village environment. Therefore, it is of great necessity to study the structure and stability of village ecosystems and to optimize the structure of village ecosystems to better guide spatial planning and to restore village ecology. This study conducted a literature search and statistical analysis on the structure and stability of village ecosystems based on WOS and CNKI literature databases. We reviewed 105 relevant articles. The current research status and progress are clarified from structural characteristics, structural optimization, structure and function and stability study. To reveal the research achievements and deficiencies of research on the structure and stability of village ecosystems, the vital scientific issues that need to be addressed are summarized based on current research results. The study found that: (1) the quantity of studies on it were on the rise; (2) the study content mainly focused on structure and function (38%) and structural characteristics (21%); (3) the regions studied are mainly in Asia (73%), Europe (12%) and Africa (10%); and (4) research institutions are mainly colleges and universities. Therefore, future research should give attention to the following three aspects: strengthening the differentiation research on the spatio-temporal scale, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the influence of the Karst Desertification Control (KDC) village structure on stability; based on the mechanism of structure on function, appropriate village ecosystem structure should be established to improve ecosystem service function; based on the influence mechanism of structure on stability, the stability evaluation index system will be constructed so as to lay a solid foundation for the stability strategy of the KDC village ecosystem. By applying the strategy of structure optimization and stability improvement to the KDC village ecosystem, the service function of the Karst village ecosystem can be improved, which can provide scientific reference for the sustainable development of the KDC village ecosystem.