Abstract
Aim
A further understanding of relationship between soil and vegetation is a prerequisite for accelerating vegetation restoration in karst area. Remarkable achievements have been made at regional and individual plant scales, but research on the relationship between soil and vegetation is insufficient at the hillslope catena scale in karst area.
Methods
Soils and vegetation were investigated along a toposequence of the dolomite peak-cluster depression catchment. Redundancy analysis (RDA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to analysis topography, soil, and vegetation relationships.
Results
The dolomite rocks displayed an evenly progressive karstification process. This led to an undeveloped underground karstic network that was unable to transport soil materials into ground. Soil materials accumulated at different topographic positions and formed continuous catena. Soil types showed a gradual transition in the form of: Entisol--Inceptisol--Semi-alfisol--Alfisol. The vegetation communities also corresponded to the change of different soil types along the slope, showing a gradual transition of herbs--herbs and shrubs--shrubs and trees--herbs and trees. RDA analysis displayed that the fine soil mass ratio was an important influencing factor for vegetation. SEM demonstrated that slope gradient directly impacted on soil nutrient stocks and indirectly affected vegetation diversity.
Conclusions
A continuous soil catena pattern was developed along the toposequence. Parameters for nutrient stocks might be more suitable for assessing soil productivity and guiding vegetation restoration in karst regions than nutrient content parameters. Slope gradient, fine soil mass ratio and nutrient stocks were important factors affecting plant diversity in karst areas.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42077077, 41930866, 41671287), the Guangxi Natural Science Foundation of China (2020GXNSFAA297242) and the Central Guided Local Science and Technology Development Fund Project (ZY21195016). We thank Xing-Yu Ma for help during the vegetation survey.
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Meng, Q., Wang, S., Fu, Z. et al. Soil types determine vegetation communities along a toposequence in a dolomite peak-cluster depression catchment. Plant Soil 475, 5–22 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05308-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05308-5