Plant population niche in Siertan wetland

In order to understand the characteristics of wetland vegetation and provide a reference for ecological restoration and vegetation protection of natural wetlands in semiarid areas, we measured indexes of Levins niche width and Pianka niche overlapping to examine the niche width and niche overlapping of plants in Siertan wetland, Yanchi county, Ningxia. The results of this study showed that the dominant species were not identical in different sample lines surrounding wetland, and plant population in wetland ecosystem presented the pattern of concentrated distribution. Among the four sample lines, the plants in the west and north sample lines grow better than the plants in the east and south sample lines. Salsola pestifer, Heteropappus altaicus, Psammochloa villosa, and Sophora alopecuroides are the dominant species in Siertan wetland, Herba Taraxaci, Aster tataricus, Lysimachia barystachys, Incarvillea sinensis, Dracocephalum moldavica, Allium mongolicum, and Artemisia ordosica are associated species. The results of niche overlapping showed that the species with big niche width did not always have big niche overlapping, and the niche width and niche overlapping did not have an obvious linear relation. This result further supports the view that resources have high spatial heterogeneity in wetland ecosystem.