Research Progresses on the Formation Mechanism of Vegetation Distribution Pattern in Wetlands
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Vegetation patterns refer to the spatial position and distribution of plants,which is determined by the interactive effects of biological characteristics of plants and environmental factors.The distribution of wetland plants usually show a belt distribution patterns along the environmental gradient,however,the formation mechanism of plant zonation is far from clear.A large number of facts showed that the formation mechanism of wetland vegetation patterns is very complicated,determined mainly by the natural environment of wetlands and biological characteristics of wetland plants as well as human disturbance.The formation mechanism of wetland vegetation pattern was reviewed from the following aspects:climate,topography,hydrophy and sediment type are the primary abiotic factors determining plant zonation mainly by the distribution changes of water,heat,light and nutrient at different scales,water level and salinity are the dominant factors determining the vegetation patterns in freshwater and salt marsh ecosystems respectively.Competition and herbivory are the dominant biotic factors influencing the vegetation patterns.Plants with higher competitive ability directly affect the vegetation distribution through fast propagation and spread,while herbivory can influence vegetation distribution by the changes of the competitive relationship among plants.The biological characteristics mainly includes the endurance to the environmental stress,propagation ability and colonization ability.For example,the plants with the highest flood endurance usually occupy the habitat with the highest water level and the species with the highest propagation and colonization abilities have the strongest competitive abilities in the complex environments.Human disturbance can change the vegetation patterns mainly through changing the relationships between abiotic and biotic factors.The aspect such as the formation mechanism of the freshwater wetland vegetaion,the role of biotic factors in determining plant distribution patterns,the influence of microbe in determining plant distribution patterns and the controlled field experiment should be emphasized in the future study.