Li Ting, Wu Minghui, Duan Changqun, Li Shiyu, Liu Chang'e
School of Ecology and Environmental Science & Yunnan Key Laboratory for Plateau Mountain Ecology and Restoration of Degraded Environments, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Feb 1;806(Pt 2):150626. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150626. Epub 2021 Sep 28.
Mining is the most destructive human activity towards ecosystems through changing the terrain, substrate properties, and vegetation community structure. Vegetation succession, the theoretical basis of restoration, is influenced by site conditions and anthropogenic intervention. In order to provide general practical applications for mine restoration, it is critical to identify the optimal intervention that promotes succession, and the influence of climates. Here, we hypothesized that high-intervention contributes to positive characteristics and more successful succession, while increasing climatic severity presents negative characteristics and succession is hard to succeed. In this study, we collected 55 global studies (n = 804) on the vegetation succession of abandoned metal mines, and evaluated the ecological characteristics and successional trends under spontaneous succession and anthropogenic intervention conditions by conducting meta-analyses. Furthermore, we considered factors that may affect the vegetation succession after closing mines, including geological conditions, mining area (area of degraded land in mine field) and mining time (duration of mining operations). Species richness and evenness increased with the age of succession under low- and non- intervention conditions, while coverage increased under high-intervention, and species diversity decreased significantly with increasing mining time in cold areas. There were significant differences in succession trends under different climate types. The vegetation structure was more likely to develop towards the target vegetation in megathermal and mesothermal than in microthermal regions. We contend that a low level of intervention can help succession, while high-intervention will not. Vegetation succession can be achieved more easily with less climatic severity, and the reduction of large-scale mining processes (area and time) can increase vegetation evenness, especially for continental or microthermal regions.
采矿是对生态系统最具破坏性的人类活动，它会改变地形、基质性质和植被群落结构。植被演替作为恢复的理论基础，受到立地条件和人为干预的影响。为了为矿山恢复提供一般的实际应用，确定促进演替的最佳干预措施以及气候的影响至关重要。在此，我们假设高干预有助于形成积极特征并实现更成功的演替，而气候严酷性增加则呈现消极特征且演替难以成功。在本研究中，我们收集了55项关于废弃金属矿山植被演替的全球研究（n = 804），并通过进行荟萃分析评估了自然演替和人为干预条件下的生态特征和演替趋势。此外，我们考虑了可能影响矿山关闭后植被演替的因素，包括地质条件、矿区面积（矿田退化土地面积）和开采时间（采矿作业持续时间）。在低干预和无干预条件下，物种丰富度和均匀度随演替年龄增加，而在高干预下盖度增加，在寒冷地区物种多样性随开采时间增加而显著下降。不同气候类型下的演替趋势存在显著差异。与低温地区相比，高温和中温地区的植被结构更有可能朝着目标植被发展。我们认为低水平干预有助于演替，而高水平干预则不然。气候严酷性较低时更容易实现植被演替，减少大规模采矿过程（面积和时间）可以增加植被均匀度，尤其是对于大陆或低温地区。
