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No Fertile Island Effects or Salt Island Effects of Tamarix chinensis on Understory Herbaceous Communities Were Found in the Coastal Area of Laizhou Bay, China

  • Degradation and Ecological Restoration of Estuarine Wetlands in China
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Abstract

Tamarix chinensis is a dominant species in both the Yellow River Delta Natural Reserve and Changyi National Marine Specific Protection Area, Laizhou Bay, China, and plays an important role in wetland ecosystems. We investigated the relationship between T. chinensis and environmental factors, and the influences of T. chinensis on understory plants. We selected four T. chinensis communities with different hydrologic conditions and salinities in the Yellow River Delta Natural Reserve and the Changyi National Marine Specific Protection Area. The results showed that the growth of T. chinensis was negatively correlated with soil salinity. Generally no fertile island effects or salt island effects of T. chinensis on herbaceous plant communities were found in the coastal area of Laizhou Bay, China. In areas with high salinity, T. chinensis provided nursery effects for understory herbaceous species, increasing species diversity and enhancing plant growth. In low-salinity environments, T. chinensis appeared to restrain the growth of understory plants. This study observed different influences of T. chinensis on herbaceous species between the Yellow River Delta Natural Reserve and Changyi National Marine Specific Protection Area, providing scientific basis and theoretical foundation for investigating plant distribution and ecological community succession in Laizhou Bay, China.

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Abbreviations

N:

Nitrogen

P:

Phosphorous

YRD:

Yellow River Delta

CY:

Changyi Ecological Special Protection Zone

EC:

Electrical Conductivity

RII:

Relative Interaction Intensity

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2017YFC0505905), the Key Research & Development Program of Shandong Province (No. 2019GSF109070), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31970347; 31770361).We thank Sun SX, Zhang K and Xie W for data collection and lab work. We thank LetPub (www.letpub.com) for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, School of Life Sciences, Shandong University, 72 Binhai Road, Qingdao, 266237, People’s Republic of China

    Dayou Zhou, Weihua Guo, Cheyu Zhang, Pan Wu, Shijie Yi, Shuren Yang, Ning Du & Xiaona Yu

  2. Shandong Provincial Engineering and Technology Research Center for Vegetation Ecology, Shandong University, 72 Binhai Road, Qingdao, 266237, People’s Republic of China

    Dayou Zhou, Weihua Guo, Cheyu Zhang, Pan Wu, Shijie Yi, Shuren Yang, Ning Du & Xiaona Yu

  3. College of Landscape Architecture and Forestry, Qingdao Agricultural University, Qingdao, 266109, People’s Republic of China

    Mingyan Li & Xiao Guo

  4. Department of Bioscience, Plant Biology, Aarhus University, Ole Worms Alle 1, DK-8000, Aarhus, C, Denmark

    Franziska Eller

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  1. Dayou Zhou
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  2. Weihua Guo
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  4. Franziska Eller
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  11. Xiao Guo
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Zhou, D., Guo, W., Li, M. et al. No Fertile Island Effects or Salt Island Effects of Tamarix chinensis on Understory Herbaceous Communities Were Found in the Coastal Area of Laizhou Bay, China. Wetlands 40, 2679–2689 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-020-01316-2

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