Hong-Tao Zhong

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Verified

Hong-Tao verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• Ph.D
• Professor (Associate) at Xiamen University

Strategies for restoring degraded ecosystems vary widely in the levels of human intervention. It has commonly been assumed that recovery with artificial inputs would be quicker and more efficient. However, is this truly the situation? We conducted a meta‐analysis to evaluate the differences and applicability between ecological restoration and ecolo...

Background Soil organic phosphorus (P) and its chemical nature change markedly during long-term pedogenesis, but how variation in ecosystem water balance and associated differences in vegetation impact such transformations remain unclear. Methods We used solution ³¹P-nuclear magnetic resonance (³¹P-NMR) spectroscopy to assess the chemical nature o...

Plant nutrient‐acquisition strategies (NAS) linking soil nutrients to plant growth are considered crucial to species replacement during primary succession. However, empirical evidence from field studies remains scarce. We examined the replacement of Hippophae tibetana (Elaeagnaceae) by Populus purdomii (Salicaceae) during the first three stages (S1...

Background Soil organic phosphorus (P) and its chemical nature change markedly during long-term pedogenesis, but how variation in ecosystem water balance and associated differences in vegetation impact such transformations remain unclear. Methods We addressed this by using solution ³¹ P-nuclear magnetic resonance ( ³¹ P-NMR) spectroscopy to assess...

Post-mining landscapes often lack self-sustaining plant communities and functional belowground microbial communities. Inappropriate management of soil can hinder ecological restoration of mine sites. However, the potential role of microbial inoculants and plant nutrient-acquisition strategies in improving mined substrates and facilitating mine-site...

Background and aims In extremely low-phosphorus (P) environments, most Proteaceae exude carboxylates from cluster roots. These carboxylates mobilise inorganic P which leads to a relatively high leaf manganese concentration ([Mn]). However, we found that Adenanthos cygnorum (Proteaceae) in a low-P habitat did not invariably have a high leaf [Mn] in...

Background Unveiling the diversity of plant strategies to acquire and use phosphorus (P) is crucial to understand factors promoting their coexistence in hyperdiverse P-impoverished communities within fire-prone landscapes such as in cerrado (South America), fynbos (South Africa) and kwongan (Australia). Scope We explore the diversity of P-acquisit...

Background and aims Southwest Australia is a biodiversity hotspot, with greatest plant species diversity on the most severely phosphorus (P)-impoverished soils. Here, non-mycorrhizal species with highly-effective carboxylate-releasing P-acquisition strategies coexist with mycorrhizal species that are less effective at accessing P on these soils. No...

Exotic lumbricid earthworms have had some limited success colonising productive agricultural pastures in New Zealand, in place of native megascolecid species that did not adapt to the conversion from native vegetation cover. Native earthworms in lowland intensively-farmed landscapes are now almost entirely restricted to small fragments of native ve...

Purpose Biotic and abiotic properties of soils can hinder or facilitate ecological restoration, and management practices that impact edaphic factors can strongly influence plant growth and restoration outcomes. Salvaged topsoil is an invaluable resource for mine-site restoration, and a common practice is topsoil transfer from mined areas to restora...

Background and aims Post-mining landscapes are often lacking in a self-sustaining plant community and in a functional belowground microbial community. Inappropriate management of soil can hinder ecological restoration of mine sites. However, the potential role of microbial inoculants and plant nutrient-acquisition strategies in improving mined subs...

Plant nutrient-acquisition and -use strategies, particularly of phosphorus (P), play an important role in ecosystem functioning, including nutrient cycling. In a recent opinion article in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Ding and colleagues [1] provided a new approach to investigate interactions between soil carbon (C), nitrogen and P cycling, espe...

Phosphorus (P) is essential for productivity of alpine grassland ecosystems, which are sensitive to global warming. We tested the hypotheses that (1) mobilized ‘calcium‐bound inorganic P’ (Ca‐Pi) is a major source of plant‐available P in alpine meadows with alkaline soils after long‐term warming, (2) mobilization of Ca‐Pi is linked to effective pla...

Changes in soil nutrient availability and primary succession of vegetation often co-occur during the processes of natural soil development. A low availability of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) resources is common in the very early and late stage of soil development, respectively. Plants have evolved different nutrient-acquisition strategies (NASs)...

Background and aimsPlant species richness increases with declining soil phosphorus (P) availability, especially for Proteaceae in old infertile landscapes. This difference in richness might be attributed to faster diversification in lineages adapted to P-impoverished soils, i.e. species that possess specialised P-acquisition strategies, and have lo...

Mine tailings pose physical and chemical challenges for plant establishment. Our aim was to learn from natural processes in long-term soil and ecosystem development to use tailings as novel parent materials and pioneer ecological-engineering plant species to ameliorate extreme conditions of tailings, and facilitate the establishment of subsequent n...

Background and aims Mined materials often require rehabilitation or ecological restoration through revegetation as part of mine closure and relinquishment practices, yet there is a widening gap between the expectations of recovery and what industry achieve. The edaphic conditions of post-mining substrates present a suite of potential limitations to...

Background and aims Mine tailings are challenging substrates for ecological restoration, as the establishment of diverse native plant communities can be constrained by a range of edaphic factors. Thus, the ability to restore native vegetation communities will depend upon developing a clear evidence-base as to what types of species and communities a...

Tailings are among the most challenging mined substrates for plant re-establishment, in particular because of a lack of soil-like structure and nitrogen. Potential pioneer plants are sometimes found at such disturbed and infertile sites. We present a group of pioneer species in the genus Maireana (Chenopodiaceae) that are promising candidates for t...

Background and aims Rates of tailings production and deposition around the world have increased markedly in recent decades, and have grown asynchronously with safe and environmentally suitable solutions for their storage. Tailings are often produced in regions harbouring biodiverse native plant communities adapted to old, highly-weathered soils. Th...

1. Global interest in building healthy soils combined with new DNA sequencing technologies has led to the generation of a vast amount of soil microbial community (SMC) data. 2. SMC analysis is being adopted widely for monitoring ecological restoration trajectories. However, despite the large and growing quantity of soil microbial data, it remains u...

1. Multiple drivers of environmental change pose a significant challenge for ecological restoration, including climate change, soil salinization and environmental pollution. Due to the important role that soil biota play in enabling plants to cope with a variety of abiotic stressors, there is growing interest in the use of microbial inoculations to...

We aim to understand the impact of ecological restoration on soil biogeochemistry, and the interrelationship between vegetation and soil phosphorus. In a study of two different‐aged soils in coastal New Zealand, soils are described along a transition from abandoned agricultural pasture, through 6‐year old restoration plots, towards forest fragments...

Ant Forest, a mobile app developed by the monolithic Alibaba Group, is greening individuals’ daily activities and transforming human capacity to reverse global environmental degradation. Over 500 million e‐trees are being cultivated every day in China using Ant Forest, and over 122 million real trees have been planted over more than 112 000 ha of d...

Endemism and rarity have long intrigued scientists. We focused on a rare endemic and critically‐endangered species in a global biodiversity hotspot, Grevillea thelemanniana (Proteaceae). We carried out plant and soil analyses of four Proteaceae, including G. thelemanniana, and combined these with glasshouse studies. The analyses related to hydrolog...

Hundreds of Proteaceae species in Australia and South Africa typically grow on phosphorus (P)‐impoverished soils, exhibiting a carboxylate‐releasing P‐mobilizing strategy. In the Southwest Australian Biodiversity Hotspot, two Xylomelum (Proteaceae) species are widely distributed, but restricted within that distribution. We grew Xylomelum occidental...

This chapter focuses on the scientific discoveries pertaining to the characteristics and plant growth biostimulating properties of vermicomposts. Vermicomposting is an efficient process of converting organic wastes into valuable humus‐like soil amending substances with good mineral nutrient content. Wastes suitable for vermicomposting can be of var...

The present study aimed to characterize key physico-chemical and mineralogical attributes of magnetite iron (Fe) ore tailings to identify potential constraints limiting in situ soil formation and direct phytostabilization. Tailings of different age, together with undisturbed local native soils, were sampled from a magnetite mine in Western Australi...

Soil phosphorus (P) is a critical nutrient for plant growth and is an important determinant of vegetation development and long-term ecosystem sustainability. We investigated the effects of rhizosphere-earthworm-guano interactions on soil P dynamics in a mesocosm involving two species of native New Zealand earthworms (Megascolecidae Sp.1 and Maoridr...

Laboratory incubation studies were used to investigate whether and how variability of different plant litters modifies the mobility of nitrogen in soil. Fallen plant foliage from native New Zealand plants of diverse fibre and nutrient content were selected, with C : N ratios ranging from 14 to 102. Different litters provided substantially different...

Native earthworms coexist with introduced species in margin of New Zealand agricultural land, despite both species behavior similar burrowing and feeding activities. Due to intensive farming system, incipient spillover of nutrients into adjacent fragments of native vegetation causes concern that it disturbs sustainability of endemic megascolecid ea...

Ecological restoration of marginal land and riparian zones in agricultural landscapes in New Zealand enhances the provision of above-ground ecosystem services. We investigated whether native endemic plant assemblages have remediation potential, through modifying soil nutrient and trace element mobility. Analysis of native plant foliage in situ indi...

The Punakaiki Coastal Restoration Project (PCRP) was established to restore sand plain forest to a landsape that had been previously mined and farmed. Over 100,000 trees have been planted to date. The site is adjacent to the Nikau Scenic Reserve which is highly ecologically significant, and it is in the flight path of a unique Westland black petrel...