Plant Community Structure in Reclaimed Lands on the West Coast of Korea

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

To clarify the vegetation structure of salty areas, species distribution was survayed according to topography, species association, community ordination, and community classification. We studied one natural tidal flat and five reclaimed lands on the western coast of Korea. Species composition and vegetation profiles changed conspicuously over time and by topographical regions. Regardless of the time that elapsed after reclamation, halophytes and glycophytes coexisted on the sites where the leaching of soil sate was stow. Species association was weak among plants in the early stages on reclaimed lands. With time, however, the strength of species associations increased among halophytes and glycophytes, and the two groups were linked by salt-tolerant glycophytes. This resulted in a series of species associations on old reclaimed lands. In the study of plant community ordination, halophytic communities were located on one side of axis I, glycophytic communities on the other. Several communities of salt-tolerant glycophytes were located between the two groups. When key species were used to classify communities, we found that halophytic and glycophytic communities were intermixed.