Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 510650, Guangzhou, China,
Environ Monit Assess. 2014 Dec;186(12):8229-47. doi: 10.1007/s10661-014-4000-6. Epub 2014 Aug 22.
A large area of plantations has been established worldwide and especially in China. Evaluating the restoration status of these plantations is essential for their long-term management. Based on our previous work, we used an ecological memory (EM) approach to evaluate four 26-year-old plantations that represent four common kinds of plantations in subtropical China, i.e., mixed broad-leaved plantation (MBP), mixed coniferous plantation (MCP), eucalyptus plantation (EP), and mixed legume plantation (MLP). Comparing them with the regional climax community, i.e., monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forest (BF), all four plantations accumulated nearly the same pattern of EM during succession. EM was >50 % for soil minerals, light conditions, soil age, soil animals, and soil microbes. EM was about 25 % for soil pollen and 10 % for birds, soil seed bank, and plant species. The total EM value of the four plantations ranged from 50.96 to 52.54, which indicated that all four plantations were in the regional, natural trajectory of succession and between the early and medium successional stages. The results indicated that natural succession processes are unlikely to be accelerated by planting late-stage tree species without sufficient EM. The results also demonstrated that all four plantations were in positive successional trajectories, and the positive succession dynamics were greater in the MLP and MCP. We suggest that the entire natural succession trajectory be used to evaluate the restoration of a site and that the ultimate restoration target be divided into several milestones along the reference trajectory to monitor progress. Forest restoration may be accelerated by starting with a minimum dynamic unit supporting sufficient EM.
全世界，特别是中国，建立了大面积的人工林。评估这些人工林的恢复状况对其长期管理至关重要。基于我们之前的工作，我们使用生态记忆（EM）方法评估了四个 26 年生的人工林，它们代表了中国亚热带地区四种常见的人工林类型，即阔叶混交林（MBP）、针叶混交林（MCP）、桉树人工林（EP）和豆科混交林（MLP）。将它们与区域顶极群落（季风常绿阔叶林，BF）进行比较，所有四个人工林在演替过程中积累了相似的 EM 模式。土壤矿物质、光照条件、土壤年龄、土壤动物和土壤微生物的 EM 大于 50%。土壤花粉的 EM 约为 25%，鸟类、土壤种子库和植物物种的 EM 约为 10%。四个人工林的总 EM 值在 50.96 到 52.54 之间，这表明所有四个人工林都处于区域自然演替轨迹和早期到中期演替阶段。研究结果表明，在没有足够 EM 的情况下，种植晚期树种不太可能加速自然演替过程。研究结果还表明，所有四个人工林都处于正向演替轨迹中，MLP 和 MCP 的正向演替动态更大。我们建议使用整个自然演替轨迹来评估一个地点的恢复情况，并沿着参考轨迹将最终恢复目标划分为几个里程碑，以监测进展。通过从支持足够 EM 的最小动态单元开始，森林恢复可能会加速。
