The response of wetland plant communities to disturbance: alleviation through symmetric disturbance and facilitation

The study pays attention to disturbances in early successional communities of wetland vegetation. We conducted artificial disturbances in a community of Suaeda salsa and Phragmites australis in the Yellow River Delta (China). Eight types of disturbances combining mowing treatments with species treatments were applied. Removal of the standing litters of P. australis or not was defined as mowing treatments, and removal of two species solo or both was defined as species treatments. We sampled 80 quadrats from the treatments plots at different intervals after the disturbance to investigate plant height, abundance, aboveground biomass, the distance between plants to reflect the effect of disturbance on composition, structure, productivity, and function of the plant communities. The strategies of seedling emergence and height growth differed as the canopy changed. Biomass contribution of different species, combined with disturbance intensity, was the main factors that affected the productivity. Homogeneity of disturbance was better for maintaining the functions of plant community in compared with the competitiveness (C), stress-tolerance (S) and ruderality (C-S-R) signatures with the control. Facilitations were reflected by the stagger arrangements in relative growth rates of the two species and in plant-plant interactions calculated by a modified function of competition. Adapting to symmetric disturbance and developing facilitative interactions are important requirements for early succession terrestrial vegetation to establish and stabilize in the seriously saline environments of wetlands.