Desert Soil Properties after Thirty Years of Vegetation Restoration in Northern Shaanxi Province of China

Abstract

The vegetation restoration sequence of ''grass-shrub-tree'' has been successfully employed in many degraded areas; however, its applicability in desertified area reclamation is questionable. In this study, soil properties of a desertified land in the northern Shaanxi province of China were determined to assess the performance of this restoration sequence. Soil samples were collected from a contiguous area consisting of a control area of original desertified land (bare control) and three vegetation restoration sequence communities (continuous grass, grass-shrubs, and grass-shrub-trees) for 30 years. Results indicate that revegetation on the desertified area decreased soil bulk density (BD) and increased soil organic matter (SOM), cation exchange capacity (CEC), available nutrients (N, P, and K), and readily oxidizable carbon (ROC). Nonactive organic carbon (NAOC) and carbon pool management index (CMI) also improved in the top soil layer but not in the lower layer. Soil texture as well as total potassium (TK) and phosphorus (TP) did not change significantly. Comparing the three vegetation restoration communities, soil physical properties, SOM, and available nutrient content improved in grassland and shrubland, but declined in treeland, lability of C (L) was higher in the top layer of restored area than in bare control. L was 0.35-0.54 in grassland, 0.49-0.57 in shrubland, 0.43-0.52 in treeland, and 0.24 to 0.26 in bare control. Results of this study indicate that vegetation restoration on desertified land can improve soil properties. However, the popular restoration sequence of ''grass-shrub-tree'' is not appropriate for the restoration of semi-arid study area with low precipitation.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi ameliorate the chemical properties and enzyme activities of rhizosphere soil in reclaimed mining subsidence in northwestern China

“…This finding was in accordance with other studies which have quantitatively addressed the AMF-mediated effects on degraded soil properties (Marschner and Baumann, 2003;Rillig and Mummey, 2006;Singh et al, 2008;Li et al, 2015). The increase of SOC content in 7-year AMF reclaimed soils was mainly due to the decomposed litter from fallen leaves and branches (Qi et al, 2015), but it had also been related to the extent of exotic AMF colonization to the root, because the majority of glomalin secreted by hyphae and spores was also a component of organic matter (Haddad and Sarkar, 2003). Meanwhile, vegetation inoculated with AMF tends to reduce its decomposition rate through increasing the nutrient limitation of saprotrophs, thereby promoting C accumulation in soil (Read et al, 2004).…”

“…Furthermore, there were also significant improvements in soil chemical properties and enzyme activities of A. fruticose rhizosphere soil in all inoculation treatments over time, except for soil Olsen P. In general, improvement in physical-chemical and biological properties of soil in degraded land can relate to revegetation period (Xu et al, 2009;Zhao et al, 2013), vegetation species (Marcin and Maria, 2010) or soil type (Qi et al, 2015). In this study, an evident increase in AMF colonization during vegetation establishment was observed, which could have critical effects on plant development and improvements of nutrients and enzymatic activities of AMF-inoculated soil.…”

“…Ten pre-existent trails in the years of 2008 (7-year), 2011 (4-year), 2012 (3-year), 2013 (2-year) and 2014 (1-year) at Daliuta Mine were revegetated with Amorpha fruticose Linn. A. fruticose is one of the drought-tolerant legumes and widely cultivated for sand-fixation on the semi-arid sand land in Northwest China (Qi et al, 2015). It has been shown to be highly dependent on arbuscular mycorrhizal microsymbionts.…”

Ecological stoichiometry of plant leaves, litter and soils in a secondary forest on China’s Loess Plateau

“…However, the performance in soil quality recovery differed among plant communities (Jiao et al, 2012;Zeng et al, 2016;Deng et al, 2016;Zhao et al, 2017). In this study, soil C, N and P concentrations in forestland was greater than in grassland and shrubland which is consistent with the previous results of Jiao et al (2012) and Qi et al (2015). This result could be explained by a larger amounts of litter present in forestland, a more above-ground litter and a higher volume of root exudates reaching the soil, resulting in higher nutrient concentrations in the forestland than in other plant communities.…”

Effect of Desertification on Some Selected Soil Properties in a Semi Arid Part of Northwestern Nigeria

“…Based on the findings of this study, it is concluded here that the study area is getting dersertified and this has effect on the SOC and texture quality of the study area. Critical factors for soil property improvement in the desert area include increases in aboveground and belowground biomass through vegetation restoration with attendant improvements in soil chemical and physical properties and soil organic matter contents [53]. Thus, it is recommended that government should embark on an afforestation drive to take care of the non-forested areas.…”