Distribution patterns of plant communities and their associations with environmental soil factors on the eastern shore of Lake Taihu, China

Wei Li,Lijuan Cui,Baodi Sun,Xinsheng Zhao,Changjun Gao,Yan Zhang,Manyin Zhang,Xu Pan,Yinru Lei,Wu Ma

doi:10.1080/20964129.2017.1385004

Abstract

ABSTRACTIntroduction: Plant communities and soil factors might interact with each other in different temporal and spatial scales, which can influence the patterns and processes of the wetland ecosystem. To get a better understanding of the distribution of plants in wetlands and analyze their associations with environmental soil factors, the structure and types of plant communities in the eastern shore area of Lake Taihu were analyzed by two-way indicator species analysis and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) ordination. The spatial distribution patterns of vegetation and the main factors affecting the distributions were investigated.Outcomes: Sixty-six sampling sites were selected to obtain vegetation species and soil environmental factor data. Results showed that 22 species from the 66 sites could be divided into seven communities: I: Arundo donax; II: A. donax + Phragmites australis; III: Zizania latifolia + Typha orientalis; IV: P. australis + Alternanthera philoxeroides + Polygonum hydropiper; V: P. australis; VI: P. australis + Humulus scandens; and VII: Erigeron acer + Ipomoea batatas + Rumex acetosa. Plant species and soil factors in the CCA analysis showed that I. batatas, E. acer, Chenopodium album, Polygonum lapathifolium, and Acalypha australis were mainly affected by pH, whereas Echinochloa crus-galli, Setaria viridis, and H. scandens were mainly affected by soil total phosphorus. Mentha canadensis and A. donax were mainly affected by soil conductivity, A. philoxeroides was mainly affected by soil organic matter and, Z. latifolia, Metaplexis japonica and P. hydropiper were mainly affected by available phosphorus.Conclusion:These results indicated that different plants adapted to different soil environmental factors and provided basic information on the diversity of Lake Taihu wetland vegetation.

Highlights

Plant communities and soil factors might interact with each other in different temporal and spatial scales, which can influence the patterns and processes of the wetland ecosystem
The plant communities in the study area were divided into seven types (Figure 2), with each being named based on the dominant species at each level and the indicator species classified by TWINSPAN
The relationship between vegetation and environmental soil factors was assessed with correspondence analysis (CCA) ordinations

Summary

Introduction

Plant communities and soil factors might interact with each other in different temporal and spatial scales, which can influence the patterns and processes of the wetland ecosystem. The vegetation in wetlands has been described by a number of authors who distinguished a variable number of wetland plant communities (Casanova and Brock 2000; Dekeyser, Kirby, and Ell 2003; O’Connell et al 2012; Williams and Ahn 2015); these works suggested various aspects of soil conditions to be the main environmental factors affecting wetland plant communities, namely soil water content and soil nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic carbon (Gilliam 2006; Li et al 2010; Zheng, Chen, and Wu 2013; Jager et al 2015; Wang et al 2016).

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Results

Conclusion