The Role Of Dispersal And Soil Seed Bank During The Recovery Of Alpine Meadow On Bare Patches

The regeneration of plant communities relies on soil seed bank and dispersal of plants. The soil seed bank and dispersal have different influence on community assembly, species diversity and functional trait diversity during the recovery and regeneration of vegetation. Previous studies have shown that, dispersal can play an important role in regeneration of vegetation of alpine meadows. However, systematic researches are scare. We monitored of the recruitment of plants on bare patches in the east of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau for three years. We recorded the species composition, species diversity and functional trait diversity of all plots to explore the effect of dispersal and soil seed bank on the recovery of vegetation. We found that:1. The number of species in the plots with seed bank is larger than those in the plots without seed bank in all the three years.2. The Shannon-Wiener diversity index and Simpson diversity index in the plots with seed banks is higher than those in the plots without seed bank. The diversity indexes increased firstly and then decreased as the area of plots increased.3. The FRic index increased as the area of plots and years increased; The FEve decreased as the area of plots and years increased; The FDis index variation law was not obvious. Accordingly, we concluded that seed bank is the material basis of recovery and regeneration of vegetation. Seed bank has great contribution to the vegetation restoration and natural regeneration at the initial stage of recovery on the bare patches. With the extension of time, dispersal plays a more and more important role in the recovery and regeneration of vegetation. The regeneration of vegetation in alpine meadows of the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is driven by dispersal. But, when the community suffered serious disturbance (such as artificial destruction), seed bank can play an irreplaceable role in the process of community recovery.