[1]DENG Qiang,LIU Di,SHI Xinrong,et al.Effects of Manipulative Precipitation on Plant Species Diversity in the Understory of Planted Robinia pseudoacacia Forest on the Loess Plateau, China[J].Research of Soil and Water Conservation,2021,28(01):1-10.
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Research of Soil and Water Conservation[ISSN 1005-3409/CN 61-1272/P] Volume:
28
Number of periods:
2021 01
Page number:
1-10
Column:
Public date:
2021-01-10
- Title:
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Effects of Manipulative Precipitation on Plant Species Diversity in the Understory of Planted Robinia pseudoacacia Forest on the Loess Plateau, China
- Author(s):
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DENG Qiang1,2, LIU Di3,4, SHI Xinrong1,4, YUAN Zhiyou
1,4
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(1.State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China; 2.University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3.College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China;
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- Keywords:
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precipitation; soil moisture content; species diversity; Loess Plateau; planted Robinia pseudoacacia forest; manipulative experiment.
- CLC:
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S718.5
- DOI:
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- Abstract:
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Climate change has a significant impact on species diversity and it remains unclear that how species diversity responds to projected precipitation change, especially for understory communities in forest ecosystems. We investigated the effects of precipitation changes on species composition, community structure and species diversity in the understory of planted Robinia pseudoacacia forest on the Loess Plateau via a manipulative throughfall experiment. Soil moisture content increased with the increase of precipitation. -80% precipitation treatment reduced the soil moisture contents in 0—20 cm and 20—40 cm soil layers by 23.6% and 16.1%, respectively. +80% precipitation treatment enhanced the soil moisture contents in 0—20 cm and 20—40 cm soil layers by 26.2% and 13.0%, respectively. The precipitation treatments enhanced the importance values of Rosaceae species and forbs, but reduced the importance values of Leguminosae and Gramineae species. The importance value of Compositae species increased with increase of precipitation. Compared with the control, both +20% and +40% precipitation manipulations increased the species diversity index and evenness index, while -60% and -80% precipitation treatments decreased the species diversity index and evenness index. Meanwhile, the species diversity index and evenness index under -80%, -60% and +80% precipitation treatments were significantly lower than those of the control. The community species richness, diversity and evenness indices were all significantly positively correlated to the soil water content of 0—20 cm soil layer, while the Simpson index was significantly positively correlated to the soil water content of 20—40 cm soil layer(R2=0.630). These results indicated that understory community mainly composed by annual plants was more susceptible to the change of water content in shallow soil layer. The response of plant species to precipitation change varied depending upon life forms and water ecological types. Precipitation change was not conducive to the living of species with low water stress tolerance, which affected the species diversity. These results revealed that it was of great significance to explore the influence of precipitation change on species diversity for vegetation construction and ecological restoration of the Loess Plateau.