Plant growth and diversity performance after restoration in Carex schmidtii tussock wetlands, Northeast China

Plant performance, which considers plant growth, community composition, and diversity, demonstrated the wetland plants' restoration efficiency of wetland plants following restoration. Carex tussocks are widespread in temperate freshwater wetlands and streams, well as characterizing with rich biodiversity. However, tussock wetlands sharply shrank and plant performance has changed due to the interaction of long-term drought, and human disturbance (road construction, grazing and mowing). In recent decades, ecological restoration has been widely conducted in degraded tussock wetlands in semi-arid area. A field investigation was done in a restored tussock wetland (R) after restoration for 10 years in order to evaluate efficacy of tussock restoration. Tussock wetlands were chosen as reference wetlands, both natural (N) and degraded (D). In semi-arid zones, the results showed that wetlands were affected by drought and flooding. After 10 years, wetland restoration effectively restored the growth and yield of Carex schmidtii tussocks compared to D, but did not reach to the natural state. The importance value (IV) of C. schmidtii has sharply decreased in R. Xerophyte species (Artemisia integrifolia) have occupied dominant position growth. Furthermore, the IV of other wetland species has dropped through time, and some have even disappeared as a result of drought and flooding. R and N have much lower species richness and Shannon-Wiener index than D. Flooding in August, following a drought, boosted the Simpson index and Evenness index in R and N. Obvious differences in species composition and community structure were found using principal component analysis among N, R, and D. Ecological restoration substantially alleviated wetland degradation in the semi-arid zone, but subsequent hydrological management is required to further promote plant growth and diversity performance.