Natural restoration of vegetation is a low-cost method to maintain plant diversity, and is an important measure to control desertification. Bare sandy patches can hardly obtain seeds from surrounding vegetation, which greatly limits the power of natural restoration of desertified grasslands.

To explore the relationship between the size of bare sandy patches and the potential of natural regeneration of plants, and to evaluate whether and to what extent the sandy patches can be restored naturally, Associate Researchers Wang Yongcui and Zhou Quanlai, as well as their colleagues from the Desertification Control Research Group of the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted an investigation in Wulan'aodu Sandy Land in Inner-Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The researchers investigated the habitat and vegetation characteristics in 24 bare sandy patches with areas ranging from 19 to 898 m².

They found that the soil seed banks in this region generally cannot support natural regeneration. To help vegetation restoration, the researchers proposed increasing soil seed bank density and seed diversity in bare patches larger than 300 m², and increasing vegetation density in bare patches smaller than 50 m².

The study results may help guide the ecological restoration practice in sandy land.

The study entitled "The feasibility of using soil seed bank for natural regeneration of degraded sandy grasslands" has been published in International Soil and Water Conservation Research, and it was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Science Foundation of Liaoning Province.