Studies on natural revegetation processes on landslide scars caused by natural disasters of semi-natural grasslands in Aso region

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K08068
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Animal production science
• Research Institution: Tokai University
• Principal Investigator: Okamoto Chinobu 東海大学, 農学部, 教授 (70248607)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 樫村 敦 東海大学, 農学部, 講師 (10587992)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 半自然草原 / 斜面崩壊 / 植生 / 自然回復 / 生物多様性 / 野草 / 阿蘇地域 / 自然災害

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We studied the natural revegetation process on landslide scars caused by natural disasters of semi-natural grasslands in Aso region, in terms of relationship with the depth of collapse. When the surface soil remained, the vegetation coverage rose annually to approximately 80% eight years after the collapse.
Plant species diversity has also recovered to its original level five years after the collapse. However, the similarity in plant species composition between the collapsed vegetation and the original vegetation was around 50%.
It seems that the collapsed vegetation would naturally recover and form heterogeneous patches of floristic composition during the succession process.

Free Research Field

草地生態学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究で得られた成果から，斜面崩壊した野草地の自然回復過程が理解され，野草地の適正な管理技術に応用することができると考えられる。
一方，一般的に自然災害による生態系のかく乱については負の影響のみが議論される傾向にある。しかし，本研究の結果からは，そのかく乱により植物の生育環境が空間的に不均一となることで，結果的にランドスケープ・スケールでの植物種の多様性を維持する要因となっている可能性が示唆された。