Water and species diversity in the embanked middle reaches of Tarim river, Xinjiang, China

Based on the spatial and temporal data of species and groundwater table investigation, the spatial characteristic of water and species diversity in the embanked middle reaches of Tarim River were analyzed. The result of Regression Analysis revealed that plant coverage had a certain correlation with groundwater level and soil moisture. The spatial distribution of soil moisture and groundwater level in the three monitoring sections was regular, that is, the nearer to watercourse, the higher of soil moisture and groundwater. The spatial distribution of species diversity at the three sections was different because of different ecological characteristics of species in this area, species richness was high at the section where the water was abundant with the low species evenness. While the species richness at the place where the water was insufficient was opposite to that at the place with abundant water. The spatial variant trend of species diversity was influenced by species evenness. So, the species diversity, at the sections with sufficient water, increased along with the distance to watercourse enhancing, however, at the sections with insufficient water, the spatial variant trend of species diversity was consistent with the spatial variant of species evenness of this section. The common characteristic of three sections was the high species richness appeared at the range of 500-1000 m to embanlanent