Ecological effects of lakeside wetlands restoration in Dalian Lake, Shanghai

Lakeside wetland (aquatic-terrestrial zone) is a kind of important inter-land between the aquatic ecosystem and land terrestrial ecosystem, its main functions are as follows: keeping biodiversity of the lake wetland ecosystem, working as a buffer zone, protecting the lakeshore against the lake water erosion and so on. However the lakeshore system is also very vulnerable, in recent years, intensive human activities have resulted in deterioration of lake water, destruction of aquatic ecosystem, and especially destruction of lakeshore structure and function. In order to understand how to preserve the ecological functions of the lakeshore wetland properly, an ecological pilot project was carried out in Dalian Lake, Shanghai, and some scientific studies concerning about the restoration of ecological environment and the protection of biodiversity were also developed in the same time. This project covered the wetland ecological restoration process such as changing the land use pattern, developing the new drainage transformation, and reforming the vegetation distribution. From August 2008 to Match 2010, parameters including land use pattern, bird populations, amphibian populations, reptile communities and water quality were collected in the restoration area to assess the effects of the project. The results showed that, the conservation value and biodiversity index have been increased significantly due to the redistribution of the different ecological habitats. During the restoration period, this demonstration area which was dominated by intensive fish ponds (50%) and woods (25%) was reformed into a much more complicated landscape with open water (30%), multi-vegetation communities (50%) and with no fish ponds left anymore. A diverse ecological area which was characterized by vegetation succession with forest, shrub, herbaceous plants and aquatic plants was established instead of small fragmentation of patch woods before the project. The statistic analysis on the total number of species and individuals of the bird communities also showed an positive increase although not in a large part (P>0.05), additionally, eleven bird species were newly recorded after the project, the Shannon-Wiener index (H') and Pielou index (J) also showed a significant increase after the project, the total individual number and species of the targeted species- Geese and Ducks got a significant increase (6 species were newly recorded). On the part of amphibian and reptiles, totally twelve sp