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cje ›› 2011, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (12): 2790-2796.

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Plant species diversity in agricultural drainage ditches in Lingwu District of Ningxia, Northwest China.

WU Pan1,2, CHEN Yong-le1,2, ZHAO Yang1, HU Yi-gang1, HUANG Lei1, ZHANG Zhi-shan1**   

  1. 1Shapotou Desert Experimental Research Station,Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 73000, China;2Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
  • Online:2011-12-08 Published:2011-12-08

Abstract: Agricultural drainage ditch is a component of field boundaries, which has the function of water conveyance and plays an important role in ecosystem services and environmental protection. To study the biodiversity in agricultural drainage ditches is of significance for the operation of field boundaries and the biodiversity protection. In this study, an investigation was conducted on the plant community structure and plant species diversity in twenty-four agricultural ditches in Lingwu District of Ningxia Autonomous Region in August 2009 and 2010. The plants in the ditches were composed of 43 species, belonging to 36 genera and 17 families. There were 7 community types, including 6 types with Phragmites australis as the main established species and 1 type composed of submerged plants, among which, Typha angustifolia + P. australis community had a mean fresh weight of 2326.2 g·m-2, being significantly higher than that of the other communities. The plant community biomass in the drainage ditches was lower in 2010 than in 2009. The species diversity was higher on ditch bank than on ditch bed, with a significant difference in Shannon index and richness index, and was higher in 2009 than in 2010. Hydrological condition, water quality, and human interference could be the main factors affecting the plant distribution, community composition, and species diversity in the agricultural drainage ditches.

Key words: persistent organic pollutants, in situ remediation, soil, bioremediation.