Seedling and ramet recruitment at the community level on recent landslide scars on the hilly and gullied Loess Plateau, China

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AbstractIn this study, we aimed to provide a comprehensive insight into seedling and ramet recruitment at the community level on recent landslide scars (i.e., the sliding surfaces regarded as the most difficult zones of landslides to restore), which may cast new light on landslide ecology and enhance theoretical support for interventions on landslide restoration. Through seedling and ramet monitoring and adult surveying on 12 three‐year‐old landslide scars on the hilly and gullied Loess Plateau, China, we characterized seedling and ramet recruitment in terms of their trade‐offs, processes and amounts, and we also assessed compositional correspondence between the adult and young (all seedlings and ramets combined) layers. We found that when seedling recruitment was employed in tandem with ramet recruitment, which might maximize colonists' fitness. Moreover, seedlings and ramets emerged constantly and were followed by low mortality rates. However, there were problems of emergence limitation and constant death, and, as a result, seedlings and ramets remained at low densities. Therefore, there appeared to be a slow and limited recruitment process of plant colonists on the scars. In addition, there was a high degree of compositional uncoupling between the adult and young layers, implying future potential changes of plant communities driven by Poa sphondylodes Trin., Stipa bungeana Trin., Ixeridium sonchifolium (Maxim.) Shih, Astragalus discolor Bunge ex Maxim. and Artemisia scoparia Waldst. et Kit. on shady scars and I. sonchifolium (Maxim.) Shih on sunny scars. We also proposed that the first three species can be used to restore landslide scars in the study area.