Abstract
Ecological restoration in coastal saline land is of great significance to regional ecological security and development. However, little is known about how soil physicochemical properties and temporal variation of soil water and salt associated with development of plant communities in this region. In this study, we conducted a transect survey of the plant community at uncultivated land on a coastal saline-alkaline land in North China. Then, we evaluated the soil physicochemical properties associated with the typical plant communities at different soil depths. Furthermore, we monitored temporal variations of soil water and salinity and evaluated the salt leaching effect in bare land and typical plant communities. Our results showed that vegetation establishment significantly reduced soil salinity, with average of 74.77% desalination occurred at the surface soil layer compared with bare land. Plant community significantly reduced soil bulk density and increased soil organic matter and infiltration rate. Heavy rainfall resulted in significant salt leaching of 6.11–13.13 g kg−1 in soil beneath plant communities. However, there was no significant soil water movement and salt migration in bare land. We showed the stronger salt leaching effect in rainfall events and less salt accumulated in the soil salinisation period along with the development of plant communities. Our study shows that salt reduction facilitated ameliorate soil physicochemical properties along with the development of plant communities which regulated the distribution of salinity in the soil profile. Our findings highlighted the importance of salt leaching regulated by vegetation for natural desalinization associated with the development of plant communities.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academic of Sciences (Grant No. XDA26040103), the Hundred Talents Program of Chinese Academic of Sciences to FZ, and the Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2022YFD1900101) to XF.
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Yang, C., Chen, H., Feng, X. et al. Soil Physicochemical Properties and Salt Leaching Associated with Typical Plant Communities in Coastal Saline Land. J Soil Sci Plant Nutr 23, 5542–5551 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-023-01420-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42729-023-01420-2