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Effects of Ecological Restoration on Trophic Dynamics in Estuarine Wetlands

  • Degradation and Ecological Restoration of Estuarine Wetlands in China
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Abstract

Ecological restoration actions to improve hydrologic conditions, including the construction of levees and freshwater release have been widely used to restore wetlands degraded by excessive soil salinity in coastal areas. However, the construction of levees for impoundments blocks the connectivity between the restored wetlands and the sea. In addition, freshwater inputs also altered some physical and chemical properties of the water bodies. In this study, stable isotopic compositions of primary producers and the shared consumers were analyzed to evaluate the impacts of these hydrologic changes on the function of the restored wetland ecosystems. After freshwater inputs, due to the change in salinity, the vegetation of the restored wetlands was replaced by the freshwater wetland vegetation. Although significant differences in the composition of basal sources existed, carbon stable isotope analyses indicated that there were no significant changes in source contribution between natural and restored wetlands for the shared consumers, with Suspended POM/ submersed aquatic vegetation being identified as contributing more carbon sources to consumers than emergent macrophytes/sediments. The construction of the impoundments eliminated the natural hydrological connection between the restored wetlands and the ocean, leading to the oligotrophic conditions in restored wetlands. For shared consumers, the δ15N values and trophic level positions in the restored wetlands became significantly lower than that in the natural wetlands.

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Data Availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the help from taxonomic experts Baoquan Li and Fuyi Yang. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China (41801084), the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC0505901), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41871099, 41671260), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (194419), and Jilin Scientific and Technological Development Program (20180101080JC). DPB was supported by the USDA Hatch Program.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China (41801084), the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC0505901), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41871099, 41671260), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (194419), and Jilin Scientific and Technological Development Program (20180101080JC). DPB was supported by the USDA Hatch Program.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Environment, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 13012, People’s Republic of China

    Haitao T. Wu & Kangle L. Lu

  2. College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang A&F University, 666 Wusu Street, Linan, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 311300, People’s Republic of China

    Mengyao Y. Yang

  3. Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Darold P. Batzer

Authors
  1. Haitao T. Wu
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  2. Mengyao Y. Yang
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  3. Kangle L. Lu
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  4. Darold P. Batzer
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by HTW, MYY and KLL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by MYY. And DPB helped to revise the manuscript with constructive discussions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mengyao Y. Yang.

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Code Availability

These Bayesian mixing models were used to estimate the percent contributions of specific basal sources to consumer biomasses in R with the simmr package.

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Wu, H.T., Yang, M.Y., Lu, K.L. et al. Effects of Ecological Restoration on Trophic Dynamics in Estuarine Wetlands. Wetlands 41, 10 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01408-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01408-7

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