Spatial variability of vegetation characteristics, soil properties and their relationships in and around China’s Badain Jaran Desert

Abstract

The Badain Jaran Desert is the second-largest desert with mobile dunes in China. Understanding its vegetation and soil characteristics and their relationships will support management and restoration of this ecosystem. To provide this knowledge, we selected eight areas for the study. We found 14 families, 28 genera, and 37 species of plants. The largest families were the Zygophyllaceae and Chenopodiaceae, accounting for 21.6 and 18.9 % of the total, respectively. The species richness (R s), Shannon–Wiener index, and dominance index (C d) differed significantly among the areas. Soils also differed in their water content and particle-size distribution. Total nitrogen, total phosphorus, available phosphorus, available potassium (AK), and electrical conductivity also differed significantly. However, soil organic matter, total potassium, AN, and pH did not differ. We found a significant correlation between AK and all diversity indexes except Pielou’s evenness index (J sw). However, J sw was significantly positively correlated with pH. Redundancy analysis (RDA) revealed a relatively strong relationship between the vegetation and soil factors. The first RDA axis was associated with soil chemical properties; the second axis reflected changes in soil physical properties, but was not statistically significant. RDA suggested that AK was the only statistically significant factor in the study area. Our results describe the spatial variability of vegetation and soil properties, and show that the plant distribution was affected by soil factors, but not strongly. There was insufficient data available on precipitation, temperature, and geomorphology to permit an analysis of the potential effects of these factors; this data should be obtained in future research.