• The Korean Journal of Ecology
• /
• v.24 no.1
• /
• pp.27-34
• /
• 2001

We described the vegetation of a disturbed lagoon wetland in relation to water and soil environments in Kungae lagoon reclaimed 30 years ago. Water depth and soil organic matter showed a great spatial heterogeneity in Kungae wetland which was changed into a freshwater marsh by the dike construction. Detrended canonical correspondence analysis suggested that differences in vegetation structure were primarily the result of variation in water depth or microtopography and soil organic matter Various emergent vegetations were developed in the wetland: species such as Phragmites australis, Calamagrostis epigeios, Carex dispalata and Lythrum anceps in a wide area, hydrophyes such as Typha angustifolia and Scirpus tabernaemontani at the low elevation with deep water, ruderals such as Bidens frondosa and Persicaria perfoliata near upland with much soil organic matter and sand-dune vegetation such as Carex kobomugi, Diodia tens, Pinus thunbergii and Potentilla egedei var. groenlandica at the high elevation. These results suggest that development of a prototype for wetland restoration from vegetation analysis of other natural lagoons and restoration of natural water tables and hydrologic connections between the diked wetland and the sea are important in the disturbed Kungae wetland.