荒漠草原土壤粗质化和养分减少伴随多年生群落转变为一年生群落

为明晰荒漠草原植物群落物种空间分布对土壤环境因子的响应,2018年在宁夏盐池县荒漠草原区域,沿灰钙土内部、边缘和外部生境,基于样线法开展植被和土壤调查及采样,采用多元回归树和冗余分析相结合,探讨植物群落随土壤因子的空间变化特征以及不同群落特征的差异。结果表明,沿灰钙土内部、外部和边缘生境:1)短花针茅+糙隐子草+披针叶黄华群落,苦豆子+白草群落逐渐转变为猪毛蒿+猪毛菜群落。2)土壤粗砂粒、有机碳和全磷含量是群落物种组成空间变化的主要控制因子。3)植物群落高度、盖度和生物量呈显著降低趋势;群落物种多样性呈先增加后减少趋势;植物群落密度呈显著增加趋势。结论沿灰钙土内部、边缘和外部生境,土壤粗颗粒含量增加,养分含量降低,多年生植物群落转变为一年生植物群落。相对于残存的灰钙土生境植物群落,经历过严重沙化的生境,多年生物种比例、植物多样性和生物量依然较低。

Increase in soil coarse sand content and decrease in soil nutrient levels accompany the transformation of perennial communities to annual communities in desert grassland

This research studied the distribution of plant communities in response to soil environmental factors in desert steppe. We selected a soil habitat transition gradient from sierozem to sandy soil in Yanchi, Ningxia, China. Within, at the edge of, and outside of the sierozem habitat, vegetation characteristics and soil sampling were conducted using a line transect method. Based on the soil environmental factors and community species composition data, we quantitatively classified the plant communities using multivariate regression trees and redundancy analysis. Then we analyzed the differences between the different plant communities using principal component analysis. It was found that dominant species of the plant communities changed from Stipa breviflora+Cleistogenes squarrosa+Thermopsis lanceolate to Sophora alopecuroides+Pennisetum centrasiaticum and to Artemisia scoparia+Salsola collina across the soil gradient. Key soil factors associated with the shift of plant community species dominance included soil coarse sand, soil organic carbon and soil total phosphorus contents. Across the habitat gradient from sierozem to sandy soil, height, cover and biomass of the plant communities showed a statistically significant increase, community species abundance showed a significant decrease, and plant community diversity showed an increase and then a decrease. As soil texture became coarser and soil nutrient content decreased along the gradient, perennial plant communities were replaced by annual plant communities. Compared with the plant communities in the sierozem habitat, the proportion of perennial plant species, plant species diversity and biomass were low in sandy habitats.