Abstract
We measured the species composition, species diversity, ecological dominance, and changes in soil physicochemical properties during vegetation regeneration in the Horqin Sandland of northeast China. Dune types changed during the regeneration process and were classified into the following four stages (in order of succession): mobile, semi-mobile, semi-fixed, and fixed dunes. Our results indicated that a typical community type occurred at each stage of vegetation regeneration and there were obvious effects of the dominant species in each community type. During vegetation regeneration, ecological functions and vegetation indices improved, as indicated by the species richness, Shannon-Wiever diversity, species evenness, ecological dominance, and plant morphology and composition (to family) of the vegetation. During community succession, annual plants in the mobile dunes were gradually replaced by perennial plants. However, Chenopodiaceae species were found at all stages of regeneration, and especially at the initial stage of succession. Gramineae and Legumi-nosae species increased with succession, indicating the increased colonization of steppe plants and the improvement of pasture quality. The soil organic matter content also increased with vegetation regeneration, but the bulk density of the soil did not change. The aboveground standing crop reached a maximum on the fixed dune, followed by the semi-fixed, semi-mobile, and mobile dunes.
