Analysis of changes in plant species and diversity after planting trees into the semi-arid desert of Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia

Eui-Joo Kim; Seung-Hyuk Lee; Sung-Bae Joo; Young-Han You

doi:10.5141/jee.23.058

pISSN 2287-8327 eISSN 2288-1220

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Published online November 7, 2023
https://doi.org/10.5141/jee.23.058

Journal of Ecology and Environment (2023) 47:16

Analysis of changes in plant species and diversity after planting trees into the semi-arid desert of Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia

Eui-Joo Kim¹, Seung-Hyuk Lee², Sung-Bae Joo³ and Young-Han You^1*

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Kongju National University, Gongju 32588, Republic of Korea
²Garden Promotion Department, Korea Arboreta and Gardens Institute, Sejong 30129, Republic of Korea
³Ecological Observation Team, National Institute of Ecology, Seocheon 33657, Republic of Korea

Correspondence to:Young-Han You
E-mail youeco21@kongju.ac.kr

Received: September 28, 2023; Revised: October 23, 2023; Accepted: October 23, 2023

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The publisher of this article is The Ecological Society of Korea in collaboration with The Korean Society of Limnology

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Abstract

Background: Inner Mongolia, desertification is happening due to climate change and land use alterations. In order to evaluate desert restoration effectiveness, this study compares number of species and species diversity in restored (with planted trees), unrestored area, and the reference ecosystem (Ref-E, typical steppe and woody steppe).
Results: The Ref-E had the most plant species (64 taxa), while the unrestored area had the fewest (5 taxa). Among restored areas (restored in 2012, 2008, 2005), older restoration sites had more species (18–42). Similarly, species richness (3.93–0.41) and diversity (1.99–0.40) were highest in the Ref-E and lowest in unrestored areas, with older restored sites having higher values.
Conclusions: More plant species and diversity in older restoration areas suggest progress toward ecosystem stabilization, approaching the Ref-E. Therefore, tree planting in Inner Mongolia’s Hulunbuir semi-arid desert is a successful restoration effort.

Keywords: desert plant, plantation, restoration, steppe, vascular plant