Farm ponds can be constructed and maintained to improve biodiversity and ecosystem functions in agricultural landscapes. Understanding the initial establishment process of vegetation in different water depths and effects of initial planting on this process is important for pond restoration. In the present study, two experimental farm ponds with or without initial planting were monitored for 5 years after their construction. These two ponds maintained high nutrients over 5 years from the beginning. The unplanted pond showed a rapid vegetation establishment and had more species and higher percent vegetation cover in 2–3 years than the reference pond. Planting accelerated this process by 1 year. Most of the early established species appeared to have originated from seed banks and/or seed rains. The species and functional diversity tended to decrease consistently since pond construction in the planted pond but increase initially and then decrease in the unplanted pond. The time when species composition between the unplanted pond and the planted pond became similar was delayed with the increase of water depth. Four years after pond construction, species composition was similar between the two ponds at all water depths. These results suggest that vegetation can establish quickly in farm ponds with fertile conditions and abundant seed sources through natural recolonization. The restoration approach for a farm pond should be decided considering the allowed time to success and the water depth. If the main goal of farm pond restoration is to improve species diversity, management practices may be more important than planting.

中文翻译：

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初植对人工养殖池塘不同深度区植被建立的影响

可以建造和维护农场池塘，以改善农业景观中的生物多样性和生态系统功能。了解不同水深植被的初生过程及初植对该过程的影响对于池塘恢复具有重要意义。在本研究中，两个有或没有初始种植的实验性农场池塘在建造后 5 年进行了监测。这两个池塘从一开始就保持了 5 年的高营养。与参考池塘相比，未种植的池塘显示出快速的植被建立，并且在 2-3 年内拥有更多的物种和更高的植被覆盖率。种植将这一过程加速了一年。大多数早期建立的物种似乎起源于种子库和/或种子雨。自人工池塘建池以来，物种和功能多样性呈持续下降趋势，但在未种植池塘中，物种和功能多样性先增加后下降。未种植池塘和种植池塘物种组成相似的时间随着水深的增加而延迟。池塘建造四年后，两个池塘在所有水深的物种组成相似。这些结果表明，通过自然重新定殖，植被可以在条件肥沃和种子来源丰富的农场池塘中迅速建立。应考虑允许的成功时间和水深来决定农场池塘的恢复方法。如果农场池塘恢复的主要目标是提高物种多样性，那么管理实践可能比种植更重要。