Abstract
Agricultural activity is widely recognized as one of the leading drivers of natural wetland loss in many parts of the world. The suitability of farmland abandonment as the wetland restoration has not been well studied in arid regions. The plant growth, community structure and soil property were examined in three farmlands abandoned for 2 (W2), 6 (W6) and 15 (W15) years and reference wetland (Wr) in the Zhangye National Wetland Park in Gansu province. The results showed that the plant abundance, soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, soil water content increased and pH value decreased along the wetland restoration stages. Shannon-Wiener diversity and Pielou’s evenness index moved towards natural wetland with increasing time of farmland abandonment, the plant community composition of the three abandoned farmlands also changed from annual to perennial dominant species. The farmland abandonment is conducive to improve soil nutrients and quality. Soil and vegetation facilitated one another in the abandonment stages. Thus, farmland abandonment is rational for wetland restoration. The mechanism of interaction between plant and soil can be used to guide wetland restoration of abandoned farmland.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the Administration of Zhangye National Wetland Park for their supports to the data collection and the field investigation, as well as Dr Haili Zhao at College of Geography and Environment Science, Northwest Normal University for her help with field experiments.
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The research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41261047, 41761043), the Scienceand Technology Project of Gansu Province (20YF3FA042) and the Youth Teacher Scientific Capability Promoting Project of Northwest Normal University (NWNU-LKQN-17-7, NWNU-LKQN-2020-06).
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Ruifeng Zhao (RF Zhao) contributed to the conception of the study and formal analysis and investigation; Xiaoya Zhang (XY Zhang) performed the data analyses and wrote the manuscript; Lihua Zhang (LH Zhang) contributed to the review and editing; Yuanbo Wang (YB Wang) helped perform the experiment.
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Zhao, R., Zhang, X., Zhang, L. et al. Plant Diversity and Soil Properties at Different Wetland Restoration Stages along a Major River in the Arid Northwest of China. Wetlands 41, 13 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01412-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01412-x