Influence of Liaoning coastal highway on plant species diversity along the highway

摘要

Influences of road on plant species diversity are more and more concerned by the road ecologists. In this paper, line transect method was employed to have an investigation to 4 types of wetlands, ocean-side grassland, marsh wetland, paddy field wetland, salt pond and the aquafarm along the coastal highway in Liaoning, China. The species composition and the gradient change law of species diversity had been discussed. The result has shown that on the gradient outward from the highway: (1) the farther from the highway, the more plant species are approximate to the local species; (2) the species richness of ocean-side grassland and marsh wetland presents a pattern of gradual increasing, while the richness of both the paddy field wetland and salt pond presents a trend of first increasing and then decreasing; (3) Shannon-Wiener diversity index, Pielou evenness index, SΦrenson index and Cody index of the community are of basically consistent change pattern, all presenting the form of first increasing and then decreasing. These analyses suggest that the highway has a significant influence on the species diversity; in the area adjacent to the road, the change of diversity is mainly associated with the habitat of different position from road, while with the increasing of distance from the road, the change of diversity has been gradually weakened; from the perspective of the influence range of road, the slope outside the ditch (about 10 m away from the road) is the area with the most abundant diversity.