[Characteristics of Carex brevicuspis and its impact factors in Dingzidi, East Dongting Lake].

In recent 20 years, the area of lake grass has been drastically reduced and degraded. In order to search for reasonable recovery ways of the lake grass, the vegetational characteristics (plant height, coverage, density, biomass and biodiversity index) and soil physico-chemical characteristics (soil organic carbon, SOC; total nitrogen, TN; total phosphorus, TP; soil bulk density and moisture) were investigated in the Carex brevicuspis community from 63 sampling plots in 7 sampling belts along an elevation gradient in Dingzidi, East Dongting Lake. All biological characteristics showed an inverted "U" distribution pattern along with increasing elevation, except for diversity index, which showed a tendency of increasing at first and then decreasing. Plant growth was inhibited near water body (low elevation region) and levee (high elevation region). In contrast, the intermediate elevation region had a favorable condition for plant growth. For soil physical properties, soil water moisture decreased but soil bulk density increased along with increasing elevation. However, SOC and TN contents were higher in the intermediate elevation region and lower in both low and high elevation regions. TP content was fluctuant along with increasing elevation. The principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the key factors influencing biomass of C. brevicuspis were soil C and N contents, soil moisture and bulk density. These results indicated that increasing soil fertility and maintaining proper soil moisture might be efficient to recover the vegetation of C. brevicuspis.