The particular species determining spatial heterogeneity in shady and terrace on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau,China

Spatial patterns of plant species and patchy community are important properties in grasslands.However,research regarding spatial patterns of formed patches with various species has not fully advanced until now.Our purpose is to clarify differences in spatial pattern formed by species and community constructed under shady and terrace habitats.The three common Kobresia-Carex patches(Size 1,0.6–0.9 m^(2);Size 2,3.0–3.8 m^(2) and Size 3,6.5–8.8 m^(2))were selected in shady and terrace on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau,and corresponding quadrats of 1m1m,2m2m and 3m3m were placed for S1,S2 and S3 patches,respectively.The surveyed quadrats were divided into 20cm20cm large cells(L-cells),and further divided into four 10cm10cm small cells(S-cells).We used the binary occurrence system(presence/absence data)to record occurrences of all species in S-cells.The analysis shows that the power law model was well able to determine the spatial distribution pattern of species or patchy community in shady and terrace.All species and patches show aggregated distribution in shady and terrace habitats.In the shady habitat,the relative spatial heterogeneity(ε)of individual plant species was lowest at presence frequency(P)of 0.1–0.3,whereas in the terrace habitatεwas lowest at P<0.1,andεincreased monotonically with increasing P.For most dominant species,P andεvalues were higher in terrace than those in shady.We concluded that the dominant species largely determine spatial heterogeneity of the Kobresia-Carex patches,while companion and rare species have weak influence on the community-level heterogeneity in shady and terrace habitats.

The velocity patterns in rigid and mobile channels with vegetation patches

The hydraulic characteristics in an open channel with vegetation are very important in controlling the environment pollution and restoring the river ecology. This paper studies the influence of the bed form and the vegetation patch density on the spatial velocity pattern. Rigid fiberglass circular cylinders are used to simulate the vegetation and a 3-D acoustic Doppler velocimeter (ADV) is used to measure the local flow velocities. Two types of bed forms and a series of vegetation patch densities are considered. The experimental results show that the bed form significantly influences the vertical distribution of the streamwise velocity. Besides, the velocity is affected by the bed form while the lateral distribution shape of the streamwise velocity as well as the lateral and longitudinal distribution shapes of the depth-averaged velocity is less affected. When all test conditions but the bed condition remain the same, as a result of the water energy consumption by the sediment movement, the velocity in the mobile bed case is smaller than that in the rigid bed case. The vegetation patch density has a significant effect on the flow velocity. The distributions of the flow velocity at different locations show different trends with the increase of the vegetation patch density. The upstream adjustment length is not affected by the vegetation patch density, but the steady wake length is very much affected.

Velocity and turbulence characteristics in an open channel with multi-row staggered vegetation patches

A staggered distribution of vegetation is very common in nature,which might significantly affect the flow structure.To investigate its impact,three rows of staggered vegetation groups are designed under seven different working conditions.The horizontal and vertical distances between the vegetation groups are constant,while the vegetation density is variable.The flow field is measured by the acoustic Doppler velocimeter(ADV).It is indicated that both the patch exit velocity and the steady wake velocity decrease with the increase of the density,which is also related to the vegetation rows.Except for the first patch,the upstream adjustment regions of all patches are diminished to some extent,due to the effect of the contralateral patch.The steady wake region also shows a decreasing trend,with a reduction of 0.5D each time when the water flows through the patch.This means that the flow structure is also affected by the number of vegetation rows.The intensity of the turbulence increases along the channel and has a non-axisymmetric distribution similar to that of the velocity.The Karman vortex street generated by the patches on the same side would merge into a larger vortex street.Depending on its intensity,the vegetation at the back has different effects on the vortex street.

Wake flow and vortex structures behind emergent vegetation patches elongated in the longitudinal direction

In natural rivers,patches of vegetation generally expand over their steady wake region in the streamwise direction,forming elongated patches with length(L)greater than their width(b).This paper studies how the wake flows and the vortices develop as the emergent patches expand their length in the streamwise direction.The patches are modeled with the same width but different lengths in laboratory experiments.Behind the patches,the steady wake region(L_(w))is not related to the width-related flow blockage(C_(d)ab),where C_(d) is the drag coefficient,a is the vegetation density.Instead,L_(w) is related to the length-related flow blockage(C_(d)aL).On this basis,a model is proposed for predicting L_(w),which is in good agreement with the measurements.As a patch becomes denser and/or longer(as C_(d)aL increases),the steady wake region becomes shorter(L_(w) decreases),and vortices are observed closer to the patch trailing edge,producing a turbulence of a greater magnitude beyond L_(w).When the flow blockage increases to the limit(C_(d)aL>8),the Karman vortices are observed directly behind the porous patches.These results can be used to explain the longitudinal elongation of the vegetation patches in the field.

Study on the flow structure around discontinued vertically layered vegetation in an open channel

The flow structure and geomorphology of rivers are significantly affected by vegetation patterns. In the present study, the effect of vegetation in the form of discontinuous and vertically double layered patches particularly on the resulting flow turbulence was examined computationally in an open channel. A k-ɛ model was implemented in this research work which was developed using 3-D numerical code FLUENT (ANSYS). After the validation process of numerical model, the impact of discontinuous layered vegetation patches on the flow turbulence was investigated against varying vegetation density and patch length. The mean stream-wise velocities at specified positions showed larger spatial fluctuations directly upstream and downstream of vegetation elements, whereas sharp inflections in the profiles were witnessed at the top of smaller submerged elements i.e. z/hs= 1 (where z is the flow depth and hs is the smaller vegetation height). The reduction in flow velocity due to tall vegetation structure was more as compared with that of short vegetation. The mean velocity in the patch regions was visibly higher than that in the gap regions. The profiles of turbulent flow properties showed more rise and fall within the patches with a high vegetation density i.e. Ss/d= 4;and St/d= 8 (where Ss/d and St/d are the smaller and taller vegetation spacing, while d is the vegetation diameter) as compared with low vegetation density i.e. Ss/d= 8;and St/d= 16. The turbulent flow structure in the large patch and gap regions was found to be more stable than that in the small patches and gaps;whereas, due to the variation in distribution form of the patch, turbulence is relatively unaffected, and the flow structure variation is low. Turbulence was observed to be large, followed by a saw-tooth distribution within the patches;whereas, low turbulence is observed in the non-vegetation regions. The turbulent intensity acquired maximum of 13% turbulence for dense vegetation arrangement as compared to that of sparse arrangement having maximum of 9% turbulent intensity. A noteworthy rise in turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent intensity was witnessed as the flow passed through the vegetated regions. Hence, a non-uniform flow was observed through discontinuous and double layered vegetation patches.