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Fractal dimension characteristics of soil particle size distribution under different vegetation patches in desert steppe and its relationship with soil nutrients

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Abstract

Soil samples from four vegetation mini-patches (Artemisia scoparia, Glycyrrhiza uralensis, Sophora alopecuroides, Astragalus melilotoides) in a desert steppe in central Ningxia were collected. Soil physico-chemical properties including soil particle-size distribution, organic matter, pH, EC, total N, total K, total P of three depths were measured. The fractal dimension of particle size distribution characteristics of soils derived from four different vegetation mini-patches and their correlations with soil physico-chemical properties were examined. The results showed that patch vege-tation distribution affected the distribution of soil particle size, with the A. melilotoides mini-patch being the highest (D=2.51) and G. uralensis mini-patch being the lowest (D=2.46). There were significant positive correlation between fractal dimensions and the contents of clay and silt, and nega-tive correlation between fractal dimensions and sand content. Fractal dimensions were positively correlated with pH value and EC, negatively correlated with the contents of soil organic matter and total N, and had no correlation with the contents of soil total K and total P. The patchy vegetation distribution had potential trends of salinization and degradation.

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... Most of the wild SDLs collected in this study grow in sandy soil, but non-wild SDLs collected from TX, PY, YZ and HSP grow in clayey soil or loam soil. The change of soil texture will not only change porosity and soil water retention capacity, but also affect the soil available nutrients and soil microorganism, and further affect the plant transpiration, photosynthesis, respiration and other physiological and biochemical effects and the accumulation of secondary metabolites (Du et al., 2019;Haruna and Yahaya, 2021). Therefore, different medicinal plants have preferences for soil texture according to their physiological needs. ...
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Stellaria dichotoma L. var. lanceolata Bge. (SDL) is the original plant of the traditional Chinese medicine Yinchaihu (Stellaria Radix). It is mainly distributed in the arid desert areas of northwest China, which is the genuine medicinal material and characteristic cultivated crop in Ningxia. This study aims to analyze the effects of different origins on SDL metabolites and quality, as well as to screen the dominant habitat factors affecting SDL in different origins. In this study, metabolites of SDL from nine different production areas were analyzed by ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF MS) based metabolomics. And field investigations were conducted to record thirteen habitat-related indicators. Results showed that 1586 metabolites were identified in different origins, which were classified as thirteen categories including lipids, organic acids and organic heterocyclic compounds derivatives. Multivariate statistical analysis showed that the metabonomic spectra of SDL from different origins had various characteristics. What’s more, co-expression network correlation analysis revealed that three metabolites modules (MEturquoise, MEbrown and MEblue) were more closely with the habitat factors and 104 hub metabolites were further screened out as the habitat-induced metabolite indicators. Besides, soil texture, soil pH value and soil total salt content were found as the dominant habitat factors which affect SDL metabolites. In conclusion, the study showed different habitat factors had various effects on SDL’s quality and established relationship between them, which provide reference for revealing SDL’s genuineness formation mechanism and guiding industrial crops practical production by habitat factors selection.
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