Vegetation succession in aquatic and littoral environments has received much less attention compared to terrestrial habitats. We sampled differently aged successional stages in 63 sandpits across the Czech Republic, Central Europe. They ranged in age since abandonment from 1 to 64 years. The chronosequence approach was adopted. Besides species identity itself, basic life-history species traits were considered to describe the succession. Based on the location (elevation) of plots, two geographical regions were delimited based on temperature and precipitation. Alongside the vegetation data, several environmental variables were recorded: age, water depth, substratum type (i.e., proportion of sand, clay, gravel and organic material), pH, conductivity, elevation and additional disturbances. Altogether, 249 vascular plant species were determined. Individual successional series in aquatic and littoral habitats differed between the altitudinal regions. As generally expected, water table was one of the main driving factors alongside age and water conductivity. Moreover, the vegetation pattern was significantly affected by substrate composition and pH. The species composition at aquatic sites was most likely mainly driven by the accumulation of organic material. Hydrophytes dominated throughout these sites. In littoral vegetation, several distinct groups of life forms could be distinguished along the successional gradient. The young sites typically included stress-tolerant therophytes and hemicryptophytes. With age, woody species started to dominate at littoral sites at higher elevations, while perennial graminoids dominated at lowland sites. Spontaneous succession at aquatic and littoral sites leads to valuable semi-natural stages and is recommended as a passive restoration option in disused sandpits.

中文翻译：

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废弃沙坑中水生和沿海植被的演替

与陆地生境相比，水生和沿海环境中的植被演替受到的关注要少得多。我们在捷克共和国和中欧的 63 个沙坑中对不同年龄的演替阶段进行了采样。他们被遗弃后的年龄从 1 岁到 64 岁不等。采用了时序方法。除了物种身份本身之外，基本的生活史物种特征也被认为可以描述这种演替。根据地块的位置（海拔），根据温度和降水划分了两个地理区域。除了植被数据，还记录了几个环境变量：年龄、水深、地层类型（即沙子、粘土、砾石和有机物质的比例）、pH、电导率、海拔和其他干扰。总共确定了 249 种维管植物。水生和沿海生境的个体演替系列在不同海拔地区之间存在差异。正如普遍预期的那样，地下水位是与年龄和水电导率一起的主要驱动因素之一。此外，植被格局受基质组成和pH值的显着影响。水生场所的物种组成很可能主要是由有机物质的积累驱动的。水生植物在这些地点占主导地位。在沿海植被中，可以沿演替梯度区分几个不同的生命形式群。年轻的地点通常包括耐压的类生植物和半隐生植物。随着年龄的增长，木本植物开始在海拔较高的沿海地区占主导地位，而多年生禾本科植物则在低地地区占主导地位。