Abstract: Urban water bodies play a significant supportive role in the composition and diversity of spontaneous plants in the surrounding areas, with such influence being greatly affected by urbanization and human interferences. To explore the performance of water-green composite spaces in supporting spontaneous plant diversity under different types, intensities, and interactions of disturbances, we examined the effects of multiple disturbances on the composition and diversity of spontaneous plants in the green areas around East Lake of Wuhan using redundancy analysis and geographic detector analysis methods. The results showed that: (1) The green space around East Lake of Wuhan was rich in spontaneous plant species, with a total of 129 species belonging to 95 genera and 39 families. The majority of plant species were annual and biennial herbs, and the invasive plant species accounted for a relatively large proportion. (2) Distance from the road, intensity of human activity, and distance from the lake significantly affected spontaneous plant diversity. Distance from the road and intensity of human activity had a negative effect on spontaneous plants of all life forms except annual and biennial herbs. Distance from the lake negatively affected spontaneous plants. (3) Considering the interaction among multiple factors, woody spontaneous plants were more susceptible to the influence of natural conditions such as hydrological conditions. The interaction between the intensity of green space management and the distance from the road had the strongest explanatory power for spontaneous plant diversity. The diversity of spontaneous plants was the highest at medium distance from the road, which to some extent supports the moderate disturbance hypothesis. The results will provide a theoretical and practical reference for the construction of urban water-green composite space with near-natural and low-maintenance spontaneous plant community.

Key words: East Lake of Wuhan, urban green space, spontaneous plant, multiple disturbance, biodiversity