Abstract
Understanding the variation of soil physico-chemical properties along slope position gradients is essential for vegetation restoration and reconstruction, but how slope positions impact the soil physico-chemical properties in the secondary vegetation of hilly regions is poorly understood. To address these uncertainties, we examined the changes in soil physico-chemical properties and their relationships along the slope position gradient in secondary vegetation of the hilly region in Guilin, southwest China. The results showed that except for the soil water content, soil total phosphorus and soil total potassium which reached the highest value at the footslope, other soil physico-chemical properties reached the highest content in the middle slope, and most of the soil physico-chemical properties showed the lowest content in the upper slope or footslope. Moreover, Pearson’s correlation analysis revealed that there were no significant correlations between most of the soil physico-chemical properties and that the correlations between soil physico-chemical properties were not consistent across different slope positions. Additionally, the principal component analysis showed that the first 4 principal components together explained 84.32% of the total variation and might be interpreted as the change of soil total nitrogen, soil organic matter, soil available nitrogen, soil available potassium, soil water content and soil total potassium. Overall, our results strongly demonstrated that slope positions showed significant effects on most of the soil physico-chemical properties and would provide an important reference for the formulation of restoration strategies in different slope positions to facilitate vegetation restoration and reconstruction and the sustainable development of the ecological environment in the hilly region.
Highlights
Soil is an important natural resource, as a key component of the mountain ecosystem, and it underpins our very existence through providing a wide range of food, feed, fiber and timber production, as well as through earth system functions that support the delivery of other “ecosystem services” [1,2]
Our study showed that the eigenvalue of the first four ordination axes is greater than 1, which can together explain 84.32% of the total variance, which was identified as soil total nitrogen, soil available nitrogen, soil organic matter, soil available potassium, soil water content and soil total potassium
Our study clearly demonstrates that the slope position showed significant effects on soil physico-chemical properties, and most of the soil physico-chemical properties showed the highest and lowest content in the middle slope position and upper slope or footslope positions, respectively
Summary
Soil is an important natural resource, as a key component of the mountain ecosystem, and it underpins our very existence through providing a wide range of food, feed, fiber and timber production, as well as through earth system functions that support the delivery of other “ecosystem services” [1,2]. The spatial variability of soil properties in an ecosystem is significantly influenced by some environmental factors such as parent materials, topography, climate, vegetation and disturbance due to human activities [5]. Among these factors, it is well recognized that topographic gradients (e.g., slope position, slope aspect, slope gradient) may play the most essential role due to their influence on the shape of the land surface, thereby dictating the distribution of local and regional microclimates by changing the pattern of precipitation, temperature and relative humidity [6,7]. It is necessary to understand the effect of slope position on soil physico-chemical properties
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