Relationship between Reaumuria soongorica community structure and soil quality of the semiarid Loess Plateau, NW of China

摘要

Reaumuria soongorica is the main dominant and constructive species of the desert shrub vegetation in the northwestern of China. The informations about changes in soil quality and vegetation structure together are available, which can provide valuable insights into the development of sustainable ecological systems that optimize production and maintain high environmental quality, but the variety of the plant community structure associate with dynamics of soil nutrient and microbial biomass are little known. In this study, five coverage levels of R. soongorica community were determined, while soil nutrients and microbial biomass were investigated. The results showed that the trends of plant species diversity (species richness) are 'humped-back model', soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), soil microbial biomass C (MBC) and N (MBN) slightly increased with plant cover but not with plant species richness. MBC and MBN were positively correlated with SOC and TN (P<0.05), and plant cover showed positively correlated with soil nutrients and soil microbial biomass. It was concluded that vegetation restoration improved soil nutrient status and indirectly affected soil microbial biomass. However, the unilateral increase of vegetation cover will have less effect to soil quality.