Diversity 2025, 17(9), 594; https://doi.org/10.3390/d17090594 - 24 Aug 2025
Abstract
Although significant progress has been made in the conservation of Père David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus) populations, rapid population growth in coastal wetlands has caused severe habitat degradation. This highlights the urgent challenge of balancing ungulate population dynamics with wetland restoration efforts,
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Although significant progress has been made in the conservation of Père David’s deer (Elaphurus davidianus) populations, rapid population growth in coastal wetlands has caused severe habitat degradation. This highlights the urgent challenge of balancing ungulate population dynamics with wetland restoration efforts, particularly considering the limited data available on post-disturbance ecosystem recovery in these environments. In this study, we evaluated soil quality and bacterial community dynamics at an abandoned feeding site and a nearby control site within the Dafeng Milu National Nature Reserve during 2020–2021. The goal was to provide a theoretical basis for the ecological restoration of Père David’s deer habitat in coastal wetlands. The main findings are as follows: among the measured indicators, bulk density (BD), soil water content (SWC), sodium (Na+), total carbon (TC), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), available potassium (AK), microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN), and the Chao index were selected to form the minimum data set (MDS) for calculating the soil quality index (SQI), effectively reflecting the actual condition of soil quality. Overall, the SQI at the feeding site was lower than that of the control site. Based on the composition of bacterial communities and the functional prediction analysis of bacterial communities in the FAPROTAX database, it is shown that feeding sites are experiencing sustained soil carbon loss, which is clearly caused by the gathering of Père David’s deer. Co-occurring network analyses demonstrated the structure of the bacterial community at the feeding site was decomplexed, and with a lower intensity than the control. In RDA, Na+ is the main soil property that affects bacterial communities. These findings suggest that the control of soil salinity is a primary consideration in the development of Père David’s deer habitat restoration programmes, followed by addressing nitrogen supplementation and carbon sequestration.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Section Microbial Diversity and Culture Collections)
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