College of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China.
Laboratory of Beijing Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing, 100083, China.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jul 31;14(1):17642. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-68618-x.
With the increasing urban environmental problems, spontaneous vegetation has been gradually emphasized for high ecological value, whose distribution has been reported as strongly influenced by fine-scale environmental factors. As one of the major zones for urban spontaneous vegetation distribution, urban riparian corridors are well suited for research on the response of spontaneous plants to microhabitats. Taking the Wenyu River-North Canal in Beijing as the study site, we measured six microhabitat factors, including the level of maintenance and visitor activity, canopy density, litter thickness, and distance to water and road, to investigate their effects on spontaneous plant assemblages. The results showed that spontaneous plants respond significantly to fine-scale habitat variation, and were more responsive to human disturbance than other factors. Compared with diversity indicators, the functional trait compositions were more significantly correlated with microhabitat factors. Under lower maintenance of plants, the spontaneous communities had a higher invasion risk for plants. Thick litter can impede the occurrence of invasive species while favoring the growth of native ones. Our findings are important for furthering understanding of the spontaneous plant community establishment, and can serve as a good reference for the maintenance and management of spontaneous plants in urban riparian corridors.
随着城市环境问题的加剧，具有高生态价值的自然植被逐渐受到重视，其自然分布受到细尺度环境因素的强烈影响。城市河岸带作为自然植被分布的主要区域之一，非常适合研究自然植物对微生境的响应。本研究以北京市温榆河-北运河为研究地点，测量了包括维护和游客活动水平、冠层密度、凋落物厚度以及与水和道路的距离在内的 6 个微生境因子，以调查它们对自然植物群落的影响。结果表明，自然植物对细尺度生境变化有显著响应，对人为干扰的响应大于其他因素。与多样性指标相比，功能性状组成与微生境因子的相关性更为显著。在较低的植物维护水平下，自然群落中植物的入侵风险更高。较厚的凋落物可以阻碍入侵物种的发生，同时有利于本地物种的生长。本研究结果对进一步了解自然植物群落的建立具有重要意义，可为城市河岸带自然植物的维护和管理提供良好的参考。
