Effects of wind blow and sand burial on the seedling growth and photosynthetic a
nd transpiration rates of desert plants.
DIAO Ha-Lin, HE Yu-Hui, YUE An-Yang, ZHOU Rui-Lian
2010, 29(03):
413-419.
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Aimed to understand the effects of wind blow and sand burial on the ph
ysiological and ecological properties of desert plants, a field experiment with
Caragana microphilla was conducted in Horqin Sand Land in 2006 and 2007. The
wind blow experiment had five treatments, i.e., 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 m·s-1
of wind velocity, and the sand burial experiment also had five treatments, i.e.,
〖JP2〗 none, light, moderate, heavy, and severe sand burial, with 0, 33%, 66%, 100%, a
nd 133% of plant height sandburied. A continuous wind blow with a velocity of
2 m·s-1 resulted in a slight decrease of photosynthetic rate and transpir
ation rate, that of 6〖KG-*2〗-〖KG-*7〗8 m·s-1 increased the two rates o
bviously, while a continuous wind blow with a velocity of 4 m·s-1 had no
obvious effects on the photosynthetic and transpiration rates. Light sand burial
promoted the stem, leaf, and root growth, and increased the biomass of C. mic
rophilla, moderate sand burial only promoted the root growth and increased the
biomass but restrained the height growth, while heavy and severe sand burial in
jured the plant growth seriously, even resulted in plant death. As a dominant sa
ndfixing plant, C. microphilla could adapt the wi
nd blow and sand burial to a certain degree through regulating its growth rhythm
and physiological characteristics, and thus, had strong capability to adapt w
indsand environment. However, severe wind blow and sand burial could result in
a severe injury to the plant, even in plant death. Therefore, C. microphilla sh
ould be planted in the place without strong windsand activity when used for fi
xing mobile sand.
