Transformation of vegetative cover on the Ustyurt Plateau of Central Asia as a consequence of the Aral Sea shrinkage
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Transformation of vegetative cover on the Ustyurt Plateau of Central Asia as a consequence of the Aral Sea shrinkage Adilov BEKZOD1,2, Shomurodov HABIBULLO1,2, FAN Lianlian2,3, LI Kaihui2,3, MA Xuexi2,3, LI Yaoming2,3* 1
Institute of Botany, Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, Tashkent 100125, Uzbekistan; CAS Research Center for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia, Urumqi 830011, China; 3 Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China 2
Abstract: The gradual shrinkage of the Aral Sea has led to not only the degradation of the unique environments of the Aral Sea, but also numerous and fast developing succession processes in the neighborhood habitats surrounding the sea. In this study, we investigated the vegetative succession processes related to the Aral Sea shrinkage in the Eastern Cliff of the Ustyurt Plateau in Republic of Uzbekistan, Central Asia. We compared the results of our current investigation (2010–2017) on vegetative communities with the geobotany data collected during the 1970s (1970–1980). The results showed great changes in the mesophytic plant communities and habitat aridization as a result of the drop in the underground water level, which decreased atmospheric humidity and increased the salt content of the soil caused by the shrinkage of the Aral Sea. In the vegetative communities, we observed a decrease in the Margalef index (DMg), which had a positive correlation with the poly-dominance index (I-D). The main indications of the plant communities' transformation were the loss of the weak species, the appearance of new communities with low species diversity, the stabilization of the projective cover of former resistant communities, as well as the appearance of a new competitive species, which occupy new habitats. Keywords: plant cover; mesophytic plant communities; vegetative succession; xerophytization; biodiversity index; climate change; Aral Sea Citation: Adilov BEKZOD, Shomurodov HABIBULLO, FAN Lianlian, LI Kaihui, MA Xuexi, LI Yaoming. 2020. Transformation of vegetative cover on the Ustyurt Plateau of Central Asia as a consequence of the Aral Sea shrinkage. Journal of Arid Land, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40333-020-0077-7.
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Introduction
The Eastern Cliff of the Ustyurt Plateau in Republic of Uzbekistan, Central Asia, is a huge, morphologically heavily rugged terrain covered by dry clay and gravel-stony deserts with sites of solonchaks and sands. At the top of the cliff, the steep limestone slopes are abruptly converted into a flat plateau. The broken line of the Eastern Cliff restricts the eastern part of the plateau and it is a former Aral Sea shore which was previously significantly larger in size (Rakhimova et al., 2018). According to geobotanical classification, the Ustyurt Plateau belongs to the northern Turan Province (Rachkovskaya, 2003; Tozhibaev et al., 2016). Until the early Quaternary period, the climate on the Ustyurt Plateau was characterized by high humidity and intensive infiltration due to * Corresponding au
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