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Restoration and Monitoring of Forested Wetlands and Salt Marshes

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A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (23 September 2023) | Viewed by 7280

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Wei Li

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Guest Editor

Institute of Wetland Research, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
Interests: wetland restoration; wetland ecological processes and effects; wetland ecology of hyperspectral remote sensing

Prof. Dr. Feng Li

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Guest Editor

Dongting Lake Station for Wetland Ecosystem Research, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha 410125, China
Interests: succession, diversity and competition of wetland plants; wetland restoration and utilization of wetland plants

Prof. Dr. Youzhi Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

College of Resources & Environment, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China
Interests: wetland ecology and environment research; involving the evolution of wetland ecosystem structure and function; ecological restoration of degraded wetlands

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forested wetlands and salt marshes are unique wetland systems which are recognized by the special plant community structure and dynamics, animal species composition and behaviors due to abundant moisture. In wetland ecology, forested wetlands and salt marshes have been important study systems. As the impacts of climate change and human activity on wetlands are increasing, forested wetlands and salt marshes across the globe and regions are changing rapidly, and wetland degradation and biodiversity loss in these ecosystems are becoming more severe. Although forested wetlands and salt marshes have been studied for a very long time, restoration and monitoring of these ecosystems started only recently. Restoration and monitoring of forested wetlands and salt marshes is an important and hot research topic regardless of whether it is approached from the perspective of ecology or of the sustainable development of human society.

This Special Issue aims to promote scientific communication and discussion about restoration and monitoring of forested wetlands and salt marshes. The study system of this Special Issue mainly includes forested wetlands, salt marshes, forest swamps, mangroves, and floodplain forests, and research conducted in other types of wetlands is also welcomed. Potential research topics include but are not limited to:

Long-term observation and dynamic analysis of forested wetlands and salt marshes;
Modeling and simulation of wetlands, wetland monitoring;
Engineering design and evaluation of restoration in forested wetlands and salt marshes;
Assessment of wetland restoration;
Carbon cycling of forested wetlands and salt marshes, wetland succession and global climate change;
Carbon measurement and potential carbon sequestration in wetlands;
Wetland biodiversity, productivity and restoration of degraded wetlands;
Environmental and geochemical processes, hydrological processes in forested wetlands and salt marshes;
Restoration and monitoring of ecosystem structure and function in wetlands.

Prof. Dr. Wei Li
Prof. Dr. Feng Li
Prof. Dr. Youzhi Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

forested wetlands
salt marshes
wetland restoration
wetland monitoring
wetland degradation

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 5468 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Monitoring the Condition of Wetlands in the Syr Darya Floodplain—How Healthy Are the Tugai Forests in Kazakhstan?

by Christian Schulz and Birgit Kleinschmit

Forests 2023, 14(12), 2305; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14122305 - 24 Nov 2023

Viewed by 807

Abstract

Tugai wetlands, including the forests of Populus euphratica Oliv. and P. pruinosa Schrenk, are major biodiversity hotspots within semi-arid and arid ecozones. However, for over a century, Central Asian river systems have been severely affected by dam regulation, water withdrawals for large-scale irrigated agriculture, and deforestation. To support sustainable use and protection of this threatened forest type, we provide information on the distribution and degradation status of Tugai wetlands in the Syr Darya floodplain using Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series from Landsat 7 and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). An accuracy assessment confirmed the validity of the MODIS-based wetland map, with an overall accuracy of 78.6%. This was considerably better than the Landsat product, mainly due to the greater temporal frequency of the MODIS time series. We further calculated trends and breakpoints between 2001 and 2016 using the BFAST algorithm. We found negative trends for nearly a third of the wetlands. Breakpoint detection showed major stress events in the years 2001, 2009, and 2016. Our study revealed the temporal and spatial distribution and vitality of an endangered forest ecosystem that has rarely been studied thus far. Climate change may accelerate the destabilization of the Tugai forests at the Syr Darya floodplain. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Restoration and Monitoring of Forested Wetlands and Salt Marshes)

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15 pages, 4740 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hyperspectral Analysis and Regression Modeling of SPAD Measurements in Leaves of Three Mangrove Species

by Huazhe Li, Lijuan Cui, Zhiguo Dou, Junjie Wang, Xiajie Zhai, Jing Li, Xinsheng Zhao, Yinru Lei, Jinzhi Wang and Wei Li

Forests 2023, 14(8), 1566; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14081566 - 31 Jul 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1008

Abstract

Mangroves have important roles in regulating climate change, and in reducing the impact of wind and waves. Analysis of the chlorophyll content of mangroves is important for monitoring their health, and their conservation and management. Thus, this study aimed to apply four regression models, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Random Forest (RF), Partial Least Squares (PLS) and Adaptive Boosting (AdaBoost), to study the inversion of Soil Plant Analysis Development (SPAD) values obtained from near-ground hyperspectral data of three dominant species, Bruguiera sexangula (Lour.) Poir. (B. sexangula), Ceriops tagal (Perr.) C. B. Rob. (C. tagal) and Rhizophora apiculata Blume (R. apiculata) in Qinglan Port Mangrove Nature Reserve. The accuracy of the model was evaluated using R², RMSE, and MAE. The mean SPAD values of R. apiculata (SPAD_avg = 66.57), with a smaller dispersion (coefficient of variation of 6.59%), were higher than those of C. tagal (SPAD_avg = 61.56) and B. sexangula (SPAD_avg = 58.60). The first-order differential transformation of the spectral data improved the accuracy of the prediction model; R² was mostly distributed in the interval of 0.4 to 0.8. The accuracy of the XGBoost model was less affected by species differences with the best stability, with RMSE at approximately 3.5 and MAE at approximately 2.85. This study provides a technical reference for large-scale detection and management of mangroves. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Restoration and Monitoring of Forested Wetlands and Salt Marshes)

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12 pages, 3078 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Riparian Vegetation Conversion to an Oil Tea Plantation: Impacts on Small Mammals at the Community, Population, and Individual Level

by Lei-Lei Zhang, Yun-Sheng Tang, Yu-Jue Wang, Jia-Neng Wang, Zheng Wang, Bao-Wei Zhang, Wen-Wen Chen, Ying Pan and Xin-Sheng Chen

Forests 2023, 14(6), 1169; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14061169 - 6 Jun 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1736

Abstract

Riparian vegetation is crucial for maintaining terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity, but it is threatened by land-use activities. To assess the ecological impacts of riparian vegetation conversion to an oil tea (Camellia oleifera) plantation, we quantified the responses of small mammals in two natural habitats (mature forest and flood-meadow) and in Camellia forests at the community, population, and individual level. We found that the community diversity was similar between Camellia forests and mature forests, but higher than the flood-meadow. Meanwhile, the community composition differed across three habitats, with Camellia forests favoring habitat generalist species. At the population level, Camellia forests and flood-meadow had a similar population density, which were higher than mature forests. At the individual level, Rattus nitidus was less sensitive to this conversion, but the body condition index of Niviventer confucianus was higher in Camellia forests than in mature forests, and Apodemus agrarius in Camellia forests had more ectoparasite load than in the flood-meadow, indicating a species-specific response to the impacts of oil tea plantation. Our study highlights that the occurrence of habitat generalist species and high ectoparasite loads may threaten regional biodiversity and increase the risk of parasite transmission with enlarging the oil tea plantation area within riparian zones. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Restoration and Monitoring of Forested Wetlands and Salt Marshes)

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19 pages, 2554 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Risk Assessments of Plant Leaf and Soil Mercury Pollution in Different Functional Areas of Changchun City

by Jiafang Pan, Ming Chen, Zhe Zhang, Hongjie Zhang, Jing Zong, Zhaojun Wang and Gang Zhang

Forests 2023, 14(6), 1108; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14061108 - 26 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1309

Abstract

Mercury is a global pollutant that has attracted widespread attention due to its persistence, concealment, and ease of migration. As the main setting for human production and life, urban ecosystems play significant roles in the global mercury cycle. Urban vegetation also plays an important role in regional mercury cycles. In this study, several common tree species in the green vegetation of Changchun were used as research objects to examine the mercury pollution characteristics of leaf litter and the surrounding soil. In this investigation, 100 sampling sites were set up in Changchun City to collect leaf litter and the surrounding topsoil. An RA-915⁺ Hg analyzer was used to determine the total mercury concentration levels. The results showed that content levels of mercury in plants ranged between 0.0133 and 0.1945 mg/kg, and different species displayed varying levels of mercury accumulation. For example, the content of mercury in Pyrus ussuriensis Maxim. was found to be 0.0755 mg/kg higher than that in the other examined subjects. It was also determined that the plant mercury concentration levels were the highest in the older industrial zones, while the lowest mercury levels were found in the new economic development zones. Furthermore, the plant mercury levels of the roadside areas were higher due to vehicle pollution discharge. Regarding the mercury pollution levels of the surface-layer soil, the soil of old industrial zones’ surface layers had higher levels of mercury pollution than the other tested sites. However, no notable connection was observed between the mercury concentration levels of the vegetation and those of the soil. This study’s results revealed that the mercury pollution of plants in Changchun City is not severe. The mercury levels in the industrial zones were graded as moderate, and those in the other regions were graded as low. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Restoration and Monitoring of Forested Wetlands and Salt Marshes)

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Review

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21 pages, 7241 KiB

Open AccessReview

CiteSpace Software Visualization Analyses of the Last Thirty Years of Research on Populus euphratica

by Xin Huang, Ruiheng Lv, Zhengli Zhou, Min Fan, Yinping Bai, Yihang Ding and Gang Yang

Forests 2023, 14(4), 714; https://doi.org/10.3390/f14040714 - 31 Mar 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1595

Abstract

Populus euphratica is the only tall tree species that adapts to the desert environment. It has strong drought tolerance and is the subject of extreme concern at home and abroad. After 30 years of development, the scope of research on Populus euphratica is very extensive, but the research content has not yet been crystalized into a mature field, and research directions at home and abroad differ. In this study, we retrieved research references on ‘P. euphratica’ published from 1992 to 2022 in both the China National Knowledge Infrastructure core journals database and the Web of Science core collection database, and CiteSpace software was employed to conduct keyword-centered bibliometric analysis in both the spatial and temporal dimensions. The purpose of this study is to clarify the research areas, developmental changes, differences between domestic and international research priorities in the last 30 years, and future trends in the field of P. euphratica research. The results show that there were 1619 domestic papers published in China related to the field of P. euphratica research, while there were only 656 foreign papers in the same field. The development of domestic P. euphratica research went through three stages initiation (1992–2000), growth (2001–2008) and stability (2009–2021), whereas no significant international trend change was observed. The domestic disciplines focus on biology, while international research focuses on crop science. In terms of content, domestic research focuses on sustainable uses of P. euphratica forests and their response to drought, intending to improve P. euphratica ecosystems. International research, on the other hand, focuses on revealing mechanisms of environmental stresses, including genetic and physiological–morphological characteristics, to exploit the excellent characteristics of P. euphratica to serve agriculture and other fields. The development process of P. euphratica research in the past 30 years has generally evolved from an initial focus on its natural conditions towards the study of the relationship between environmental factors and P. euphratica physiological and morphological characteristics and, finally, the study of stress tolerance mechanisms and gene expression of P. euphratica. There is a trend towards ‘applications of P. euphratica tolerance genes’, which may represent a direction for future growth research. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Restoration and Monitoring of Forested Wetlands and Salt Marshes)

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