2026-10-13T17:25:08Z https://www.scidb.cn/oai

10.57760/sciencedb.39519 2026-06-23T19:35:13Z

2026-06-23 Vegetation and soil characteristics and their driving factors during restoration succession of degraded patches in alpine meadows of the Qilian Mountains, China doi:10.57760/sciencedb.39519 en We analyzed the characteristics and driving mechanisms of vegetation, soil, and microbial biomass, using bare patches, short-term restored plant patches, and healthy alpine meadows in the Qilian Mountains as a restoration succession sequence, and identified their driving mechanisms to inform ecological restoration strategies for degraded alpine ecosystem. The results showed that bare patches supported only three plant species, dominated by Ajania tenuifolia. Short-term restored patches contained 26 species, with Sibbaldianthe bifurca and Lancea tibetica as the dominant species. Healthy alpine meadows exhibited the highest species richness (40 species), dominated by Carex parvula and Elymus nutans. As restoration succession progressed, community height (1.3–4.1 cm), total biomass (239.2–3112.9 g·m⁻²), Patrick richness index (2.2–23.6), and Shannon diversity index (0.7–2.3) all increased significantly. Concurrently, soil pH and bulk density decreased, while soil water content increased. Soil organic matter and total/available nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium showed a unimodal response to succession, peaking in the short-term restored stage. Across all successional stages, soil nutrients exhibited strong surface accumulation, with concentrations in the 0–10 cm layer significantly higher than in the 10–20 cm layer. Random forest analysis revealed that the explanatory rates of soil physical properties, total nutrients, available nutrients, and microbial biomass (MBC MBN MBP) for total plant biomass variation were 31.3%, 20.1%, 13.9%, and 34.7%, respectively. Similarly, their explanatory rates for species diversity were 44.0%, 6.1%, 6.9%, and 43.1%, respectively. Structural equation modeling confirmed that succession stage had extremely strong positive direct effects on both plant biomass (path coefficient = 0.97) and species diversity (path coefficient = 0.89). Overall, the findings demonstrated that vegetation community structure, productivity, and soil physicochemical properties improved synergistically during the restoration of degraded alpine meadow patches. Soil factors were the primary drivers of vegetation recovery, highlighting a significant positive coupling between vegetation restoration and soil environment improvement.  bare patch; restoration succession; species diversity; soil characteristics han xin ying Jing Meiling RESTRICTED dataset http://www.doi.org/10.13287/j.1001-9332.202606.006 Science Data Bank