Effects of Plant Species on Soil Properties in the Ecosystem Restoration - A Case Study in the Dry Valley of the Upper Minjiang River

Abstract

Biodiversity pattern impacts effects on the soil properties on different scales, and contrarily soil characteristics influence biodiversity. Changes in the abundance of species-especially those that influence water and nutrient dynamics, trophic interactions-affect the structure and functioning of ecosystems. It is very important to reveal their close relationships for understanding the process of ecosystems. As an ecological sensitive region in Yangtze River, the shrub community biogeochemistry of arid valley in Upper Minjiang River caused much attention. We investigated the detailed plant biodiversity, topography and different soil properties along six typical shrub line-transects at three sites in the valley. To discern the complex relationships of plant and soil, different multivariate statistical analysis techniques were used at different spatial scales. The results showed different soil properties were significantly relative to community features at different scales and principle component analysis screened that available nitrogen (AN) was a sensitive factor for the shrub communities. Multivariate linear regression revealed that shrub coverage, height and herb species had quantitative linear relationships with AN content. Further study of biodiversity and soil properties showed that soil organic matter (OM), total nitrogen (TN) and AN had high relationship with the deduced plant -diversity index. To elucidate the effects of species change on the soil properties, we compared the similarity index and the nutrient variation index we brought out using two methods. The results showed species change could explain variation of soil properties and they had certain cause-effect relation along the slope catena and in the arid dry valley. Thus, it is possible to identify potential mechanism of soils response to variation in plant diversity, with implications for resource management.

Resource availability through rainwater harvesting influenced vegetation diversity and herbage yield in hillslope of Aravalli in India

“…Uniform distribution of rainfall and run-off collection in box trenches improved SWC in BT plots in most of the observations resulting in taller vegetation. Species richness, diversity and herbage yield showed negative relations with SWC in VD plots during the growing period, suggesting efficient utilization of soil water by more diverse vegetation, the regeneration of which was probably influenced by soil fertility, i.e., SOC, NO 3 -N and NH 4 -N availability (Table 1), indicating a cause-effect relation between herbage species and soil resources as observed by Liu et al (2008) along the slope. It was supported by increased SWC in VD plots in December because grass harvesting/vegetation senescence reduced soil water usage.…”

Effects of rainwater harvesting and afforestation on soil properties and growth of Emblica officinalis while restoring degraded hills in western India

“…However, inadequate availability of water and nutrients affect natural regeneration or plantation growths (Li et al, 2008;Gammoh, 2011) and there is need to supply additional water and nutrients. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) devices may be useful in increasing water supply and facilitating plant growth (Gupta, 1995;Prinz, 2001;Xiao-hui et al, 2005) and vegetation cover (Jia et al, 2006;Singh et al, 2010) by improving infiltration rate and soil nutrients (Ludwig et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2008;Vohland and Barry, 2009). However, the extent to which different RWH devices influence soil improvement, plant growth and rehabilitation process needs to be investigated under different topographical conditions particularly in the degraded hills.…”