Abstract
Aims
Shelter forest communities in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) have been disturbed, withering, or even dying, showing ecosystem degradation. It is challenging to systematically analyze the relationship between forest dynamics and factors since multiple simultaneous drivers of degradation may interact and have confounding effects in different phenophases.
Methods
The vegetation indexes (VI), groundwater, soil water content (SWC), and electrical conductivity (EC) dynamics of the 0–260 cm soil layers were investigated in 3 health levels of shelter forests from May to October 2015, as well as the root distribution and topography. The Geodetector model was used to detect the factors affecting the forests in different phenophases.
Results
The kernel normalized difference vegetation index (kNDVI), normalized difference infrared index (NDII), and leaf area index (LAI) can monitor the growing season of shelter forests. SWC in the 60–220 cm soil layers had better explanatory power for NDII (\(\overline{Q }\)=0.74) and kNDVI (\(\overline{Q }\)=0.76) in the leaf expansion, full leaf and discoloration periods. LAI was sensitive to SWC in the 60–180 cm soil layers (\(\overline{Q }\)=0.85) during the fruit development and ripening period. The interaction of topography, soil texture, and groundwater influenced the dynamics and distribution of SWC (\(\overline{Q }\)=0.40–0.98) and EC (\(\overline{Q }\)=0.31–0.90).
Conclusions
SWC was the leading cause of degradation of shelter forests in the YRD during the growing season, and EC synergistically enhanced forest degradation with SWC in leaf expansion and discoloration periods. Differences in topography, soil texture and groundwater contribute to the different distribution and dynamics of SWC and EC.
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Acknowledgements
The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant numbers 41471419 and 31971579). Author Hong Wang has received research support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
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Li, X., Wang, H., Qin, S. et al. Yellow river delta shelter forest dynamic and degradation factors detection in different phenophases. Plant Soil 479, 233–250 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05512-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05512-3