Changes in Species Diversity Patterns and Spatial Heterogeneity during the Secondary Succession of Grassland Vegetation on the Loess Plateau, China

Abstract

Analyzing the dynamic patterns of species diversity and spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in grasslands during secondary succession could help with the maintenance and management of these ecosystems. Here, we evaluated the influence of secondary succession on grassland plant diversity and spatial heterogeneity of abandoned croplands on the Loess Plateau (China) during four phases of recovery: 1–5, 5–10, 10–20, and 20–30 years. The species composition and dominance of the grassland vegetation changed markedly during secondary succession and formed a clear successional series, with the species assemblage dominated by Artemisia capillaris→ Heteropappus altaicus→ A. sacrorum. The diversity pattern was one of low–high–low, with diversity peaking in the 10–20 year phase, thus corresponding to a hump-backed model in which maximum diversity occurring at the intermediate stages. A spatially aggregated pattern prevailed throughout the entire period of grassland recovery; this was likely linked to the dispersal properties of herbaceous plants and to high habitat heterogeneity. We conclude that natural succession was conducive to the successful recovery of native vegetation. From a management perspective, native pioneer tree species should be introduced about 20 years after abandoning croplands to accelerate the natural succession of grassland vegetation.

Community Preferences of Woody Plant Species in a Heterogeneous Temperate Forest, China

“…Many studies on the spatial distribution and drivers of woody plants are available. In particular, the effects of abiotic factors, such as topography (Svenning, 1999;Wangda and Ohsawa, 2006;Lan et al, 2011), light (Han et al, 2017;Gallé et al, 2018), and soil (Song et al, 2015;Gao et al, 2017), and biological factors, such as competition (Zhu et al, 2015(Zhu et al, , 2018 and species succession (Mi et al, 2016;Sun et al, 2017), on woody plants have been investigated. In the present study, different woody plant species had distinct specific preferences among various plant community types in the temperate mountain forest.…”

Effects of vegetation restoration on soil nutrients, plant diversity, and its spatiotemporal heterogeneity in a desert–oasis ecotone

“…Chao et al (2014) applied a uniform approach to sample‐ and individual‐based data to estimate the first three Hill numbers to characterize the diversity of a species assemblage: species richness (q = 0), the Shannon entropy index (Shannon diversity, q = 1), and the anti‐Simpson concentration (Simpson diversity, q = 2). These proposed estimators are accurate for both sparse and short‐range extrapolations (Sun et al, 2017).…”

“…Sparse and extrapolated curves and Hill numbers were used to compare the plant diversity patterns (Sun et al, 2017). We estimated plant diversity (species richness and Shannon and Simpson diversities) as the mean of 200 replicates with a 95% confidence interval (Chao, Chiu, & Jost, 2014).…”

“…Desert areas are broadly distributed in arid and semiarid regions of northwest China (Sun, Chai, Liu, & Xue, 2017). Survival-adapted shrub afforestation is an effective measure for restoring desertified land throughout the region (Sandercock & Hooke, 2017).…”

Cropland heterogeneity changes on the Northeast China Plain in the last three decades (1980s–2010s)

“…Fragmentation always leads to the heterogeneity of cropland, which is an important property that describes the variability of the observed surface properties in space (Chen et al, 2012). Because the cropland heterogeneity affects biodiversity or the environmental risks in crop fields (Martin et al, 2020;Sun et al, 2017a), it becomes a hot topic for researchers to focus on. There was some conclusion that different land uses with its heterogeneity could lead to a widespread decline in cropland biodiversity (Benton, Vickery & Wilson, 2003;Zhou et al, 2008).…”