Journal of Arid Land

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Effects of wetland connectivity on plant communities and vegetation patterns in the Qaidam Basin

YUE Yifan, MA Dengke, MA Yuanyuan, KANG Wenrong, ZHOU Guoying, ZHAO Wenzhi

干旱区科学, 2026, 18(4): 696-714. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaridl.2026.04.008

Connectivity gradients	Threshold range	Sampling site	IC value	Geographic information
High-connectivity	0.28-1.32	S2	0.38	36°34′25.33′′N, 98°31′21.66′′E
		S3	0.31	37°09′10.21′′N, 97°33′14.92′′E
		S4	0.66	37°24′30.63′′N, 96°43′32.58′′E
		S5	0.29	37°44′39.71′′N, 95°17′28.83′′E
		S11	0.47	36°58′21.19′′N, 93°02′08.41′′E
Moderate-connectivity	-1.79-0.28	S1	0.05	36°47′40.06′′N, 99°00′29.35′′E
		S8	0.03	36°36′53.92′′N, 93°53′19.79′′E
		S9	-1.75	36°52′39.82′′N, 93°23′53.26′′E
		S10	0.05	36°36′16.16′′N, 93°54′13.67′′E
Low-connectivity	< -1.79	S6	-2.16	36°36′16.80′′N, 94°58′28.85′′E
		S7	-1.86	36°28′13.95′′N, 94°19′27.01′′E
		S12	-2.33	37°22′07.14′′N, 92°30′37.78′′E
		S13	-2.06	37°33′14.12′′N, 92°07′54.68′′E

Table 1 Sampling sites division

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Fig. 2 Correlation analysis between the Index of Connectivity (IC) and wetland area
Fig. 8 Analysis of drivers for wetland vegetation characteristics in the Qaidam Basin using PLS-PM. (a), the loading value of each explanatory variable; (b), the direct and indirect effects of environmental variables on wetland ecosystems from the PLS-PM. AVE, average variance extracted; MAP, mean annual precipitation; MAT, mean annual temperature; PET, potential evapotranspiration. GOF, Goodness-of-Fit. ^**, significance at P<0.05 level; ^***, significance at P<0.01 level. Solid lines indicate significant relationships; and blue and red dashed lines indicate negative and positive insignificant relationships, respectively. The thickness of the line represents the strength of the causal relationship, supplemented by a standardized path coefficient.
Fig. 5 Spatial pattern of different wetland connectivity gradients
Fig. 3 Spatial distribution of different landscape
Table S1 Number of validation sampling sites and cartographic accuracy for each land cover type
Fig. 1 Sampling site locations of the wetlands in the Qaidam Basin (a) and representative landscape photographs of high- (b), moderate- (c), and low-connectivity (d) sites.
Fig. 6 Comparative analysis of wetland vegetation community characteristics under different connectivity gradients. (a), fractional vegetation coverage (FVC); (b), Simpson's Dominance Index; (c), Pielou's Evenness Index; (d) Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index. The upper and lower boundaries of the box indicate the 25^th and 75^th percentiles, respectively; the bar is the standard deviation (SD); the horizontal line within each box indicates the median value; and the black line connects the mean values across analysis units; the symbol "×" indicates that only one species was recorded at that sampling site; and the point indicates the data of each sampling site. ns, non-significance; ^***, significance at P<0.01 level.
Fig. S1 Spatial distribution of validation sampling sites used for accuracy assessment. The survey route denotes the actual vehicle survey route conducted during field investigations in the Qaidam Basin from June to July in 2025.
Fig. S2 Frequency distribution histogram of IC values with connectivity classification based on the Jenks Natural Breaks method
Table S2 Characteristics of wetland vegetation communities in the Qaidam Basin
Fig. 4 Determination of the optimal analysis unit. (a), variation characteristics of wetland landscape total area (TA); (b), stability analysis of first-order differences (ΔTA) across different analysis unit. CV, coefficient of variation.
Fig. 7 Characteristics of wetland vegetation pattern indices under different connectivity gradients. (a), class area (CA); (b), largest patch index (LPI); (c), area-weighted mean patch size (AREA_AM); (d), mean shape index (SHAPE_MN); (e), patch density (PD); (f), perimeter-area fractal dimension (PAFRAC); (g), mean contiguity index (CONTIG_MN); (h), mean Euclidean nearest-neighbor distance (ENN_MN); (i), aggregation index (AI).

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