全 文 ：Received 30 Dec. 2003 Accepted 12 Feb. 2004
Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (03043501) and Education Department of Anhui Province (2003kj156),
the Foundation of the Provincial Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resources in Anhui.
* Author for correspondence. Tel: +86 (0)553 3869233; E-mail: .
http://www.chineseplantscience.com
Acta Botanica Sinica
植 物 学 报 2004, 46 (7): 780-787
Patterns of Vegetation Succession in the Process of Ecological Restoration
on the Deserted Land of Shizishan Copper Tailings in Tongling City
WANG You-Bao1, 2, LIU Deng-Yi1, 2*, ZHANG Li1, LI Ying1, 2, CHU Ling1, 2
(1. College of Life Sciences, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241000, China;
2. The Provincial Key Laboratory of the Conservation and Exploitation of Biological Resources in Anhui
Normal University, Wuhu 241000, China )
Abstract: Through the field investigation and laboratory analysis, this paper describes the regular
pattern of community succession on the deserted land of Shizishan copper tailings in Tongling City. There
are 49 species of natural colonized plants on the wasteland, which are subordinate to 15 families and 38
genera. The main families are Compositae (12 species), Gramineae (11 species), Leguminosae (8 species)
and Hippochaete ramosissimum, which belong to Equisetaceae. The extreme soil infertility and excessively
concentration of heavy metals (especially Cu and Cd) are the main limiting factors to plants colonization.
The vegetation on the deserted land of copper tailings is distributed in spot piece and scattered mainly with
fewer species of plant, with lower species diversity. Annual and biennial herbs and grasses are dominant
components. Cynodon dactylon, Imperata cylindrica var. major, Lespedeza chinensis, Erigeron annuus and
H. ramosissimum etc. have a higher summed dominance ratio. The natural formation of plant community
on the deserted land of copper tailings usually goes through seeds spread, invasion, ecesis, aggregation and
species competition. After several years of primary natural restoration, 14 communities were formed.
According to their community composition and structure level, the 14 communities are divided into three
primary succession stages, namely monodominant, subdominant and codominant species communities.
With the formation and succession of these communities, species were enriched and diversity increased,
the margin of summed dominance ratio of species in each community decreased, and the composition or
structure of community became complex.
Key words: deserted land of copper tailings; ecological restoration; vegetation succession; pattern
It was estimated that more than 20 million hm2 of farm-
land (roughly 1/5 of the total farmland area) have been
contaminated in China at present ( Wei et al., 2001), among
them, the industry and mining industry wasteland already
accumulated to 2.0× 106 hm2. The contradiction raised
up by the population increase and the farmland reduction
made the work of recovering the wasteland particularly
important, but at present the recovery rate of wasteland in
our country roughly reaches only 2% ( Chen et al.,1993).
The mining industry wasteland could no longer be used
without being treated. There exist three types of mining
wastes: (1) mullock heap formed by strip mine’s topsoil,
abandoned mining stone and low quality ore; (2) hollow or
sunk area left over by mining; and (3) the deserted land of
tailings formed by accumulation of waste residue left over
by ore concentration ( Lan et al.,1996; Chen et al., 2001).
Re-establishment of vegetation on these wastelands is an
attracting research field in current plant ecology (Bradshaw,
1983; Wong, 1986; Dong, 1996; Jiang et al.,1993) and is
also an ideal way to treat wastelands. Usually, the natural
vegetation growing on wastelands recovers very slowly.
Several decades to few hundred years are needed to ob-
tain a good vegetation. To date, much research work on
wasteland has particularly emphasized on the way and tech-
nique of artificial recovery and reconstruction for degen-
eration ecosystem, both at home and abroad (Zhang et al.,
1999). Research on natural plants is mainly focused on
detecting heavy metal hyper-accumulator plants and the
mechanism of absorption by analysising heavy metal con-
tent in dominant plant (Robinson et al.,1998; Tang et al.,
1999). Concerning the recovery process and characteris-
tics of natural vegetation on wasteland, the report written
by Chen et al. (2001) was related to the phosphate mining
wasteland. However, research on deserted land of copper
tailings with a seriously contamination of heavy metals
has not yet been largely reported. Investigations on
vegetation’s recovery process on wasteland will help to
understand the course of regular and mechanism of plant
WANG You-Bao et al.: Patterns of Vegetation Succession in the Process of Ecological Restoration on the Deserted Land of
Shizishan Copper Tailings in Tongling City 781
community’s formation and succession, which has an im-
portant significance for vegetation recovery and recon-
struction on wasteland.
Tongling City is an important base for copper mining
and smelting in China. Currently, it has five quite large-
scale deserted land of copper tailings ( 280 hm2 of land),
formed by accumulation of tailings from copper ore
concentration. They not only occupy a large pieces of
land, destroy large-scale biological communities, but also
broke the ecosystem landscape and environmental func-
tion around them, seriously polluted the soil, water and
atmosphere in big scope, endangered the safety of people
and animals in the field, hindered the district’s develop-
ment of social economics (Sun et al.,1998). This paper de-
scribes the characteristics and state of natural vegetation
growing on large-scale deserted land of copper tailings of
Tongling City with the purpose of offering a good refer-
ence for vegetation reconstruction and ecosystem protec-
tion on this kind of wasteland.
1 Research Methods
1.1 Research locality
Tongling City is situated in the south of Anhui Province,
on the south bank of the low middle reaches of Yangtze
River, it belongs to subtropics wetness weather area, and
the season weather characteristic is clear. The spring is
short with mild weather and abundant rainfall; the summer
is hot with plenty of rainfall, and the dog days are hot and
dry. The year and summer temperature average are respec-
tively 16.2 and 27.4 ℃, and the average frost-free period
covers 230 d. The annual rainfall average is 1 390 mm, and
the mean air humidity in a year is 75%-80%. The predomi-
nant direction of wind in the city is northeast (winter),
southwest (summer). The deserted land of Shizishan cop-
per tailings is roughly estimated 20 hm2, piled up by cop-
per tailings. It lies in a village named Chaoshan in the city’s
southeast part, with mountain on three sides and dam
which is about 100 m high on one side. The deserted land
was stopped emission 10 years ago, with no human
interference, wind and water erosion are serious.
1.2 Soil sample analysis
Soil samples were collected from the wasteland with
and without plants, at a depth of 0-15 cm. Contrast samples
were taken from farmland, far from the wasteland (about 5
km). All the above samples were brought back to the
laboratory, and air-dry in natural state. Their chemical prop-
erties were analyzed by measuring pH, organic matter, to-
tal N, total P, total K (Nanjing Institute of Soil Science,
Academia Sinica,1978), after a digestion with H2SO4-HClO4,
Cu, Cd, Zn and Pb contents were also measured (the Edi-
torial Board of Environment Pollution Analysis Methods,
1980).
1.3 Vegetation investigation
Since plants that growing on deserted land of metal
tailings have the characteristic of short growth period, in
April and July in 2001 and 2002, through two first and next
half a year, four times in total, we investigated the de-
serted land of copper tailings, statisticed and analyzed the
natural plants growing on the wasteland. From the center
of the deserted land of tailings, as starting point, four lines
were drawn respectively in the East (E), South (S), West
(W) and North (N) directions. Sample was randomly col-
lected along each direction. The sampling plot size was 1
m2 and 160 samples in total were harvested.
Plant species diversity as well as species abundance
and coverage in the sampling meter square above were
analyzed and their summed dominance ratio and species
diversity computed using respectively the density and cov-
erage ratios (SDR2), and Simpson index (D), Shannon-
Wiener index (H), Species enriches degree and Evenness
index (E) (Department of Biology, Inner Mongolia
University,1986; Sun et al.,1993) as follows:
D = 1- Σ (Ni/N)2
E = =
H = - Σ Pilog2Pi
Where S is the number of species, Ni is the individual
number of species i, N is the total number of all the spe-
cies’ individual, Pi is the ratio of species i’s individual
number in all species.
The sociability was measured by the method of Braun-
Blanquet’s five class classification (Zhu et al.,1983).
2 Results and Analysis
2.1 Physical and chemical properties of the deserted
land of copper tailings
The surface of large bare area of the deserted land of
copper ta il ings was loose, very unsteady, and
unstructured. It had poor water and fertilizer retention
ability. It was eroded by wind and water. But the land sur-
face colonized by plants was stable, structured and not
subjected to wind and water erosion. The ability of keep-
ing water and fertilizer was improved. Compared to the
normal soil, chemical properties of deserted land of copper
tailings exhibited obvious differences. The soil of the
i=1
s
H
Hmax
H
log2 S
i=1
s
Acta Botanica Sinica 植物学报 Vol.46 No.7 2004782
copper tailings wasteland was extremely poor. N and K
contents were very low, almost 1/4 to 1/7 of the normal
soil. The organic matter was much lower than N and K, and
the lowest content of organic matter did not reach 1/30 of
the normal soil.
On the contrary, the heavy metal content of the de-
serted land of copper tailings extremely exceeded that of
the normal soil, with Pb and Zn contents reaching the
double to five-fold and Cu and Cd surpassing 20 to 30
times in average. It could be regarded that the extreme
infertility and excessive concentration of the heavy metals
(especially the excessive concentration of Cu and Cd) were
the most important limiting factors to plant’s growth and
propagation in these areas.
2.2 Vegetation composition and its characteristics on
the deserted land of copper tailings
The deserted land of Shizishan copper tailings is sur-
rounded by mountains on three sides. The average veg-
etation coverage on the mountain slope amounted to 90%-
100%. The vertical vegetation structure on this slope was
evident, and its vegetation layers distinct; the disorder
forest was scattered, and some common woods were settled,
such as Pinaceae, Fagaceae and Lauraceae, etc. A total of
49 higher plant species, belonging to 38 genera and 15
families, were present in the deserted land. The vegetation
coverage was reduced and below 50% in average. Accord-
ing to the life from (Table 2), herb was the most dominant
part of all the vegetation compositions found in the inves-
tigated deserted land of copper tailings. There were 26
species of annual and biennial herbs, and 20 ones of pe-
rennial herb, representing 53.1% and 40.8% of total
species, respectively. The rest (6.1%) involved a small
amount of deciduous xylophyta. No evergreen xylophyta
and liana were found on the deserted land. This indicates
that grass was the main vegetation type of the wasteland.
Abundant heliophytes and scarce sciophytes were found
on it, showing that the ecological environment of the de-
serted land of copper tailings was dry and deteriorated.
Species of Compositae and Gramineae were the most
abundant of all the vegetation compositions on the de-
serted land of copper tailings. There were 12 species
(24.5%) of Compositae, and 11 (22.4%) of Gramineae. The
rest included 8 of Leguminosae (16.3%). The species of
Polygonaceae, Plantaginaceae and Euphorbiaceae were
relatively scarce, and others plant families possessed single
species. The summed dominance ratios of Cynodon
dactylon, Imperata cylindrica var. majo, Lespedeza
chinensis, Erigeron annuus, Hippochaete ramosissimum
and Polygonum hydropiper of all the vegetations were
considerable. Moreover, Medicago lupulina and Trifolium
pratense were found to have gathered in some areas on
the deserted land, resulted from man-made cultivation. The
plants with higher summed dominance ratios were more
important in vegetation composition, and became pioneer
plants or builder plants of community on the process of
vegetation’s formation. Moreover, Compositae, Gramineae
and Leguminosae plants were abundant of all wasteland
plants. It indicated that the three plant families highly con-
tributed to the process of vegetation formation on deserted
land of copper tailings.
At the same time, among this ecesis plants on deserted
land of copper tailings, species spread by animals were
rare and most of species had a characteristic of small propa-
gable body, light and adapted to spread by wind. Maybe
because the deserted land of copper tailings belonged to a
kind of man-made primary bare area, natural ecesis on the
Table 1 The chemical properties of soil (mg/kg)
Sample pH Total N Total P Total K Organic matter Cu Cd Zn Pb
(g/kg) (mg/kg)
A 7.84 0.21 0.11 1.56 0.50 834.75 6.80 228.20 38.85
B 7.68 0.75 0.14 3.01 3.26 509.75 6.65 216.40 35.55
C 7.62 0.35 0.15 3.81 3.17 318.20 5.15 176.55 32.00
D 7.31 1.24 0.12 10.02 13.61 25.46 0.23 43.06 13.46
Soil samples were taken from copper tailings wasteland without plant (A) and respectively colonized by Hippochaete ramosissimum (B) and
Cynodon dactylon (C), as well as from normal soil (D).
Table 2 The composition of vegetation on the deserted land of copper tailings
Plot Number of species Evergreen xylopyta Deciduous xylophyta Liana Annual herb Perennial herb
East 25 - 3 - 13 9
South 23 - 2 - 14 7
West 17 - 1 - 7 9
North 9 - 1 - 4 4
Total 49 0 3 0 26 20
WANG You-Bao et al.: Patterns of Vegetation Succession in the Process of Ecological Restoration on the Deserted Land of
Shizishan Copper Tailings in Tongling City 783
kind of primary bare area firstly depends on the source of
plant propagable body (Ash et al., 1994; Shu et al., 2001).
No single plant propagable body existed on deserted land
of copper tailings, so only species having seeds provided
with ferocious migration ability could reach the bare area.
These species showed also to be endurable to deteriorate
environment or have feature of intense hereditary differ-
entiation ability, so as to become an endurable population
or ecotype in extreme environmental conditions. Plant
species, mostly distributed on the deserted land of copper
tailings, were characterized by either strong seeds spread
and environmental adaption ability (Compositae, Gramineae
and Polygonaceae) (Shu et al., 2001) or nitrogen fixation
potential (Leguminosae).
Also, as very limited pteridophyte species were found
on the studied site, the remarkable presence of H.
ramosissimum (belonging to Equisetaceae), on the deserted
land of copper tailings needs to be given a special
attention. Indeed, it is known that pteridophyte species
often show specific growth demands on some environ-
mental factors such as moisture and soil conditions, etc.
Therefore, the successful ecesis and propagation of H.
ramosissimum on such detrimental biotopes require a deep
scientific interest.
2.3 Primary community types and their formation and
succession on the deserted land of copper tailings
The deserted land of Shizishan copper tailings was
stacked and formed of waste residues (tailings) left over
by ore concentration, on which no plants existed at the
beginning: it belonged to the primary bare area. But, among
the existing plant species, some have fairly high sociability,
especially some dominant species, indicating that plants
on some areas display the characteristics of primary suc-
cession community, such as colonization of pioneer plants,
ecesis, aggregation and competition, etc. According to dif-
ferent areas and builder plants, the vegetation on the de-
serted land of copper tailings uprised five components,
namely Hippochaete ramosissimum + Imperata cylindrica
var. major community, Synodon dactylon community, Les-
pedeza chinensis community, Medicago lupulina com-
munity and Erigeron annuus community, including 14 suc-
cession communities (Table 2). Following the composition
species of vegetation, as well as the category, quantity
and distribution of dominant plants, the vegetation could
also be divided into three succession stages, namely
monodominant, subdominant and codominant species
communities. Considering differences in pioneer plants on
each community and in environment factors, i.e. district
and soil condition, each succession stage was subdivided
in several kinds of community types.
Monodominant species community was the primary
stage of formation and succession of plant communities
on the deserted land of copper tailings, which presented
characteristics of scarce community composition types,
simple structure and extremely high dominance, summed
dominance ratio and sociability of builder species. After
having colonized and ecesis, pioneer plants produced
many young shoots around mother plants and became
dominant population, having features of high density and
high coverage, namely monodominant species community,
in which other plants had the features of small category
and quantity; they were repressed in ecesis and growth
and were placed in inferior position. Taking S. dactylon
community and I. cylindrica var. major community (Table
3), as example: the summed dominance ratio of their domi-
nant species exceeded 90%, and most of their sociability
were 5. But, the total summed dominance ratio of other
species in community were below 10%. Species competed
each other in monodominant species community, and pro-
duced subdominant species, which initiated a new kind of
succession stage, namely subdominant species community.
In subdominant species community, owing to the compe-
tition between species, the dominance, sociability and
summed dominance ratio of dominant species decreased,
but their evenness index increased. On the contrary, also
due to the competition between species, the dominance of
subdominant species in the community increased, and
uneven of the distribution and sociability of species also
increased (i.e. I. cylindrica var. major in the S. dactylon +
I. cylindrica var. major community and S. dactylon in the
E. annuus + S. dactylon community). Thus, the composi-
tion and construction of the whole community inclined to
more complication. Codominant species community was
derived from subdominant species. Species composition
in community came to a mutual balance in such a way that
more than one plant species remained dominant. Therefore,
the difference of summed dominance ratio of dominant
plants was not significant, evenness of their distribution
was comparatively big, and sociability of dominant spe-
cies was similar. The E. annuus + I. cylindrica var. major +
S. dactylon community and E. annuus + L. chinensis + M.
lupulina + I. cylindrica var. major community, etc. on the
deserted land of copper tailings showed similar
characteristics.
2.4 Variation of main composition species during the
process of formation and succession of plant community
on the deserted land of copper tailings
Together with the formation and succession of plant
Acta Botanica Sinica 植物学报 Vol.46 No.7 2004784
communities on the deserted land of copper tailings, marked
changes had taken place among the main composition spe-
cies (Table 3). Along with the development of succession
stages, the difference between the absolute values of
summed dominance ratio of main species in communities
tended to reduction, whereas the status of each main plant
in community tended to equality, which made the differ-
ence of each earlier community formed by different pio-
neer plants in different districts decreased or eliminated
gradually, and they tended to form succession communi-
ties which had the same or similar dominant species
gradually. But as a result of differences of natural environ-
mental factors and propagable plant body sources in dif-
ferent districts, the components of communities on some
areas, especially the components of dominant species
would present their noticeable differences in a span of
time. As shown in Table 3, the H. ramosissimwn, present in
H. ramosissimwn + I. cylindrica var. major + S. dactylon
community and H. ramosissimwn + I. cylindrica var. ma-
jor + E. annuus community, did not exist in E. annuus + I.
cylindrica var. major + S. dactylon community, L.
chinensis + I. cylindrica var. major community and E.
annuus + L. chinensis + M. lupulina +I. cylindrica var.
major community. According to the components of domi-
nant species in each community, the 14 type succession
communities had a relation as indicated in Fig.1. Among
them, invasion and extension of dominant plants such as
S. dactylon, I. cylindrica var. major and E. annuus, etc.,
promoted the contact between communities in different
districts on the deserted land of copper tailings, and, thus,
pushed forward the succession progress of plant commu-
nities on the wasteland.
At the same time, ecesis of these pioneer plants en-
hanced the stability of surface tailings in the deserted land
of copper tailings, accumulated some organic matter and
decreased the concentration of heavy metal in soil (Table
1). Besides, the water retention ability and ample fertilizer
use improved the soil quality in a certain degree, and laid
the foundation for the landing of other plants (Qu et al.,
1983). However, the invasion by other plants and the im-
provement of the environment decreased the competitive
capacity of these pioneer plants in the communities, and
reduced their dominance. It could be calculated out that,
with time, the dominance of these earlier landing plants
would gradually come down. Therefore, these plants be-
came subordinate components in the communities or fi-
nally disappeared.
2.5 Changes of species diversity in the process of forma-
tion and succession of plant communities on the deserted
land of copper tailings
Compared to the vegetation distributing in humid sub-
tropical areas (Chen et al., 2000), the species diversity
Table 3 The main communities and their composition of inant on the deserted land of copper tailings
The main community Dominant species (SDR, S)*
Monodominant species community
Synodon dactylon Comm. S. dactylon (94.7, 5)
Imperata cylindrica var. major Comm. I. cylindrica var. major (92.1, 5)
Erigeron annuus Comm. E. annuus (90.8, 4)
Hippochaete ramosissimum Comm. H. ramosissimum (96.3, 5)
Medicago lupulina Comm. M. lupulina (96.7, 5)
Subdominant species community
S. dactylon + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. S. dactylon (72.1, 4), I. cylindrica var. major (20.3, 3)
E. annuus + S. dactylon Comm. E. annuus (68.4, 4), S. dactylon (25.7, 3)
M. lupulina + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. M. lupulina (71.1, 5), I. cylindrica var. major (19.8, 4)
E. annuus + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. E. annuus (60.9, 3), I. cylindrica var. major (29.5, 3)
Codominant species community
E. annuus + I. cylindrica var. major + S. dactylon Comm. E. annuus (31.4, 3), I. cylindrica var. major (20.6, 3), S. dactylon
(20.3, 2), L. chinensis (12.4, 2)
Lespedeza chinensis + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. L. chinensis (38.7, 3), I. cylindrica var. major (31.6, 2),
M. lupulina (21.9, 3)
E. annuus + L. chinensis + M. lupulina +I. cylindrica var. E. annuus (22.5, 2), L. chinensis (21.8, 2), M. lupulina (20.6, 3),
major Comm. I. cylindrica var. major (17.6, 2)
H. ramosissimum + I. cylindrica var. major + S. dactylon Comm. H. ramosissimum (32.8, 3), I. cylindrica var. major (29.7, 3),
S. dactylon (19.4, 2), E. annuus (11.3, 2)
H. ramosissimum + I. cylindrica var. major + E. annuus Comm. H. ramosissimum (33.6, 3), I. cylindrica var. major (30.1, 3), E. annuus
(21.1, 2)
S, sociability; SDR, summed dominance ratio.
WANG You-Bao et al.: Patterns of Vegetation Succession in the Process of Ecological Restoration on the Deserted Land of
Shizishan Copper Tailings in Tongling City 785
index of every succession community inclined to reduce.
But, the extending of dominant plants which existed in the
five monodominant species communities like S. dactylon
community, etc. on the deserted land of copper tailings
increased the biomass and coverage of each community,
added the number of component species of community,
and, further, promoted the differentiation of habitat. Thus,
the changed habitat provided more competition factors to
the first invading dominant plants, and compelled them to
lose slowly and gradually their dominant position in the
community. Some subdominant plants and codominant
plants arose. As a result, the herbs communities, which
formed at early period, tended to form communities having
perpendicular structure of shrub such as L. chinensis + I.
cylindrica var. major community, etc.
Owing to the increase of interspecific competition and
the emergence of subdominant plants and codominant
plants, the aggregative distribution of single species con-
stantly met challenge. The distribution of species in com-
munities tended to be evenly distributed, the evenness
index of community tended to increase and the competi-
tion of making use of environmental resources of plant
species inclined to equilibrium in a certain degree. In
summary, with the advance of communities’ succession
on deserted land of copper tailings, the biomass of com-
munities and the differences in natural space of plants’
vivosphere increased, the life forms of communities en-
riched continuously and the species number and diversity
raised up (Table 4).
3 Discussion
The soil of the deserted land of copper tailings was
extremely poor and full of heavy metals. Among these, the
N and K contents were very low, amounted only to 1/4-
1/7 of normal soil. The lowest content of organic matter
was under 1/30 of normal soil. However, the heavy metal
content extremely exceeded that in the normal soil. Pb and
Zn contents reached 2-5 times, and Cu and Cd content
upreached 20-30 times of the normal soil in average (Table
1). These factors, especially the extreme infertility and the
Fig.1. The relation of communities succession.
Table 4 The species diversity of main communities on the deserted land of copper tailings
Community
Number of Coverage Simpson Shannon-Wiener Evenness
species (%) index index index
Synodon dactylon Comm. 3 10 0.092 0.322 0.203
Imperata cylindrica var. major Comm. 4 8 0.135 0.450 0.225
Erigeron annuus Comm. 5 10 0.213 0.736 0.317
Hippochaete ramosissimum Comm. 3 30 0.111 0.375 0.236
Medicago lupulina Comm. 3 7 0.109 0.371 0.234
S. dactylon + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. 8 60 0.543 1.700 0.567
E. annuus + S. dactylon Comm. 14 55 0.612 2.157 0.567
M. lupulina + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. 10 75 0.495 1.554 0.468
E. annuus + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. 8 50 0.548 1.544 0.515
E. annuus + . cylindrica var. major + S. dactylon Comm. 24 85 0.817 3.043 0.664
Lespedeza chinensis + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. 11 50 0.716 2.185 0.632
E. annuus + I. chinensis + M. lupulina + I. cylindrica var. major Comm. 27 95 0.830 3.172 0.667
H. ramosissimum + I. cylindrica var. major + S. dactylon Comm. 7 75 0.732 2.082 0.742
H. ramosissimum + I. cylindrica var. major + E. annuus Comm. 8 75 0.693 1.915 0.638
Acta Botanica Sinica 植物学报 Vol.46 No.7 2004786
excessively concentration of Cu and Cd, greatly limited
plant growth and propagation. As a result, plants of natu-
ral ecesis were only 49 species, belonging to 38 genera
and 15 families. Among them, the annual and biennial or
perennial herbs, which had stronger possession ability of
adapting to the environment, were the main ecesisors. They
primarily belonged to Compositae, Gramineae or
Leguminosae. However, H. ramosissimum of Pteridophyte
had an important position on the deserted land of copper
tailings, too. Because of higher request of environmental
conditions, such as water and humidity, of Pteridophyte,
the wide drought-enduring and poor-enduring plants like
C. dactylon and I. cylindraca var. major, etc. presented
noticeable differences. To advance the research on H.
ramosissimum, would do good to finding out endurable
mechanism of endurable plant thoroughly, and furnish ref-
erence for bringing the wasteland which accumulated wa-
ter under control and reclamation. The research of this
aspect needed to be explored deeply.
The deserted land of Shizishan copper tailings of
Tongling City is situated in the northern side of subtropics,
which belongs to subtropical humid area. So the speed of
natural vegetation restoration was relatively quick. Emis-
sion was stopped at the wasteland about only 10 years
ago, the naturally distributed plants had already formed 14
relatively stable succession communities (Table 3; Fig.1),
indicating that the deserted land of copper tailings had
better ability for vegetation’s restoration. On the other
hand, the extreme soil poverty and high concentration of
heavy metals in deserted land of copper tailings’ soil
(especially the excessive concentration of Cu and Cd) be-
came the most primary factors that limited not only the
component species of vegetation, but also the speed of
vegetation formation and succession on the deserted land
of copper tailings. The natural formation of plant commu-
nity on the deserted land of copper tailings had gone
through many stages such as colonization of pioneer
plants, ecesis, aggregation and competition, etc., which
joined the characteristics of primary succession. The com-
munities were divided into three succession stages, namely
monodominant, subdominant and codominant species
communities (Fig.1). The invasion and extension of domi-
nant plants such as S. dactylon, I. cylindrica var. major
and E. annuus, etc. promoted the contact of communities
in different districts on the deserted land of copper tailings.
They improved in a certain degree the vile conditions of
the wasteland, accumulated N, P and some organic matter,
decreased the concentration of heavy metal as Cu and Cd
in soil (Table 1). These earlier landing plants pushed
forward the succession progress of plant communities on
the deserted land of copper tailings, enlarged the species
abundance of community, and increased the species di-
versity index. The structure and gradation of communities
became complicated (Table 4), and brought about a de-
crease of differences of summed dominance ratio of plants
in each community (Table 3).
The natural restoration of ecosystem was relatively
slow. The participation of artificial restoration could,
somewhat, change the development direction and speed
of ecosystem, and shorten the span of vegetation’s
restoration. In this paper, the artificial sowed seeds of M.
lupulina and T. pratense had already formed good veg-
etation on the wasteland, and showed marked promotion
for vegetation formation and succession on the deserted
land of copper tailings. Some successively ecesis plants
like C. dactylon, I. cylindraca var. major, L. chinensis, E.
annuus and H. ramosissimum, etc. had considerable domi-
nance in the vegetation on the deserted land of copper
tailings, and also could be first selected in restoring de-
serted land of copper tailings. From this artificial
management, it could believe that the progress of
phytoremediation on deserted land of copper tailings could
be accelerated.
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(Managing editor: HAN Ya-Qin)