Biodiv Sci ›› 2014, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (5): 564-573.  DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1003.2014.14078

• Original Papers • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A rapid and quantitative assessment of wetland vegetation restoration effects with Floristic Quality Assessment Index

Wanting Peng1, Peng Luo3,*(), Changqing Liu2, Ronghua Tang4, Yuanzhi Pan1,*()   

  1. 1 School of Landscape Architecture, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130
    2 School of Resources and Environment, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130
    3 Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041
    4 Management Centre of Wetland, Forest Department of Sichuan Province, Chengdu 610081
  • Received:2014-04-14 Accepted:2014-08-29 Online:2014-09-20 Published:2014-10-09
  • Contact: Luo Peng,Pan Yuanzhi

Abstract:

Conventional assessment of wetland conservation/restoration effects usually involves monitoring of multiple variables and requires interdisciplinary expertise in biology, environmental sciences and socioeconomics. As China is putting huge efforts into restoring degraded wetlands, fast and cost-effective methodologies for quantitative assessment of the conservation effects are crucial and in great need. For three years, we studied a former paddy field that was recently rehabilitated to a forested wetland in Yunqiao, southwest China. Floristic Quality Assessment Index (FQAI) was used as an ecological indicator to monitor rehabilitation progress with repeat yearly samplings of plant species information along four parallel fixed line-transects in the wetland. The conservative values were calculated for each species based on evaluation of all wetland plants in the floristic area. The results showed that both the mean coefficient of conservatism (CCmean) and the FQAI increased significantly, while no clear trends were presented by the species diversity indices (Shannon-Wiener index, Simpson index, Pielou index) over the three year sampling period, suggesting FQAI is a promising and effective ecological indicator for rapid and quantitative measurement of vegetative rehabilitation effects in wetlands.

Key words: Floristic Quality Assessment Index, coefficient of conservatism, ecological indicator, species richness, wetland assessment