Abstract
Alpine sand dunes restoration is extremely difficult but important in the ecosystem restoration. Sand dunes are known as harsh soil and poor seed bank which freed from advantages on plants growth naturally. Effective restoration measures are required to guide the sand dune restoration. Here, indigenous grass (Elymus nutans) was sown in sand dune on the Zoige Plateau and treated with no sand barrier (CK) and environmental friendly materials including wicker sand barrier (wicker) and sandbag sand barrier (sandbag). The soil conditions were assessed by measuring the soil moisture and nutrients of the topsoil, and interspecific relationship and population niche were utilized to analyze the plant community structure variances among different restoration measures. Results showed that the soil and vegetation in the sand barriers measures were better than that in the CK. The soil moisture in the sandbag measure was 16.67% higher than that in the wicker measure. The nutrients content and microbial biomass were also the best in the sandbag measures. The ratio of strong association was the highest in the sandbag measure and the lowest in the CK, whereas the plants had the highest none association ratio in the CK. In addition, the average population niche overlap ranked by sandbag (0.39)>wicker (0.32)>CK (0.26). Thus, incorporation of sand barriers and indigenous grass seeding in alpine sand dunes could promote the sand dune restoration. And the sandbag measure showed a stronger improvement effect on the sand dune soil and vegetation conditions than the wicker measure.
Highlights
Introduction201504401), the National Science & Technology Pillar Program
The same species importance values varied in the different restoration measures
The E. nutans occupied the dominant position in all measures, especially in the sandbag measure where the importance value of E. nutans was up to 52.89 (Table 3)
Summary
201504401), the National Science & Technology Pillar Program The terrestrial ecosystem has been experiencing increasing severe desertification [1]. Desertification threatens the ecological safety and its restoration is one of the vital elements in the mountain-river-forest-farmland-lake-grass system (referred as meta-ecosystem) restoration [2, 3]. The Zoige Plateau is part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau that claims to be the "Roof of the world" and "The Third Pole". The long-termed complex causes (e.g., overgrazing, climate change) accelerated sand dunes expanding process on the Zoige Plateau [4,5,6].
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