Abstract Seed coating technology, initially developed for agricultural enhancement, demonstrates emerging potential in ecological restoration yet faces critical knowledge gaps regarding its efficacy across degraded ecosystems. Through a systematic meta‐analysis, we demonstrate that seed coatings—particularly those incorporating microbial inoculants—enhance germination (+23.05%) and biomass (+43.33%) across degraded ecosystems. Coating efficacy exhibits stress‐dependent patterns: linear decline under salinity, quadratic responses to cold stress, and stress‐independent outcomes under drought. While current applications predominantly focus on Poaceae and Fabaceae, compatibility constraints with woody species and newly introduced restoration plants highlight the need for technological adaptation. The study identifies a critical disconnect between coating technology development and species selection priorities in restoration ecology, underscoring the need for cross‐disciplinary integration. We demonstrate that successful ecological restoration requires integration of seed coating with other restoration methods to address multi‐scale challenges. These findings provide crucial insights for developing targeted coating strategies in ecological restoration, while emphasizing the importance of comprehensive habitat optimization.

Artificial wetlands are widespread in urbanized coastal landscapes, but their role as managed assets for restoring habitat-network connectivity remains poorly quantified. We developed a scenario-based decision framework for prioritizing artificial wetlands in connectivity-oriented environmental management, using the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area as a model coastal megadelta. The framework diagnoses scale-dependent structural transitions in remnant natural wetlands, identifies stepping-stones, hubs and cut points in natural-only and natural–artificial wetland networks, and simulates progressive restoration of priority artificial wetlands with Condatis under alternative corridor directions, dispersal distances and restoration intensities. The natural wetland network showed three transition domains: fragmentation reduction at 1.59–8.89 km, local patch-cluster formation at 9.46–12.08 km and dominant-component expansion at 17.81–25.53 km. Most connectivity-critical natural nodes occurred outside protected areas, revealing a management gap not captured by area-based protection. Artificial wetlands substantially reshaped network structure: reservoirs and constructed ponds dominated priority-node counts, whereas aquaculture ponds contributed most priority-node area. Restoration responses depended jointly on corridor direction and dispersal distance. Lateral cross-delta scenarios produced the largest simulated gains, while longitudinal inland–coastal scenarios remained weak. Averaged response curves yielded geometric knee points at 9.4–10.7% of existing artificial-wetland area, marking the restored-area range where fitted connectivity gains shifted from weak to more rapidly increasing responses. The framework translates connectivity diagnosis into actionable restoration prioritization and can support adaptive wetland management in human-dominated coastal deltas.

The recovery of coastal aquaculture ponds and salt pans into functional wetlands represents a widespread challenge in global coastal restoration, yet passive recovery strategies often fail to address legacy effects associated with habitat degradation and functional deficits. Taking the Yellow River Delta National Park as a case study, a comprehensive field survey was conducted on water and soil conditions, vegetation communities, and benthic assemblages. Results indicated that salinity and organic load in both water and soil were key environmental gradients associated with cross-habitat differences in biological communities, with redundancy analysis explaining 44.2% of the variance. Abandoned salt pans exhibited an ecological lock-in characterized by extremely depauperate biotic communities, where excessive soil salinity exceeding 3% and strong environmental filtering prevented vegetation colonization. In contrast, although abandoned aquaculture ponds maintained higher benthic biomass, elevated chemical oxygen demand (COD) and legacy soil phosphorus indicate a risk of endogenous pollution. Moreover, excessive water depth (>1 m) substantially limited the effective foraging potential for shorebirds, resulting in a pronounced mismatch between resource abundance and accessibility. To address these constraints, this study proposes a conceptual “1+3+L” adaptive management framework, encompassing ecological production, functional zonal restoration, and ecological corridor connectivity. This framework integrates observed ecological constraints and functional patterns to form evidence-based management hypotheses aimed at addressing key legacy barriers in constructed wetlands and enhancing their functional potential as foraging habitats for waterbirds.

Hydrological connectivity refers to a water-mediated transfer of matter, energy, and organisms in the hydrological cycle and plays a key role in shaping river-lake ecospace and their relevant functions. However, the river-lake ecospace is usually used to indicate static land units such as rivers, lakes, and riparian zones, which lack deep exploration of their relationships and connotations. As a functional space, the river-lake ecospace correlate with variations in hydrological connectivity in terms of structural and functional diversity along the unban-rural gradient. To better understand the relationship between hydrological connectivity and the river-lake ecospace, we first analyzed the characteristics and driving factors of hydrological connectivity in urban-rural areas and then summarized the distribution and functions of the river-lake ecospace. Based on these, we discussed the relationship between the variations in both of them in river-lake system from the aspects of structure, process, and function. Finally, we propose implications for regulating and optimizing the river-lake connectivity to expand the ecospace and enhance its functions.

Reducing carbon emissions and increasing carbon sinks have become the core issues of the international community. Although coastal blue carbon ecosystems (such as mangroves, seagrass beds, coastal salt marshes and large algae) account for less than 0.5% of the seafloor area, they contain more than 50% of marine carbon reserves, occupying an important position in the global carbon cycle. However, with the rapid development of the economy and the continuous expansion of human activities, coastal wetlands have suffered serious damage, and their carbon sequestration capacity has been greatly limited. Ecological restoration has emerged as a key measure to reverse this trend. Through a series of measures, including restoring the hydrological conditions of damaged wetlands, cultivating suitable plant species, effectively managing invasive species and rebuilding habitats, ecological restoration is committed to restoring the ecological functions of wetlands and increasing their ecological service value. Therefore, this paper first reviews the research status and influencing factors of coastal wetland carbon sinks, discusses the objectives, types and measures of various coastal wetland ecological restoration projects, analyzes the impact of these ecological restoration projects on wetland carbon sink function, and proposes suggestions for incorporating carbon sink enhancement into wetland ecological restoration.

At present, wheat production is increasingly failing to meet the demands of a growing population. Studies have shown that dark septate endophytes (DSE) can promote host growth, providing new insights for promoting wheat growth and improving crop yields. In this study, we screened the growth-promoting DSE strain Paraphoma pye (Pp) and inoculated it into wheat seedlings under conditions of no fertilizer, organic nitrogen fertilizer, and inorganic nitrogen fertilizer (0, Y, and W). In combination with transcriptome sequencing, the growth, physiology, and soil indicators of wheat were studied. The results indicated that Pp generally had a positive effect on wheat growth, and this promoting effect was more pronounced under the fertilized conditions. Under different fertilizer treatments, Pp inoculation showed altered impacts on host growth and transcription analysis, particularly in the expression of genes associated with growth and secondary metabolite synthesis. In addition, the combined application of Pp and organic nitrogen fertilizer significantly increased soil enzyme activity, whereas the combined application of Pp and inorganic nitrogen fertilizer increased the host photosynthetic rate, chlorophyll content and nitrogen accumulation. Furthermore, weighted gene co-expression network analysis revealed that the “MAPK signaling pathway” and “glycosphingolipid biosynthesis pathway” may be the key pathways affecting plant phenotypes under Pp-inorganic fertilizer treatment. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of the effects of DSE combined with fertilizer on plant growth and provides a feasible approach to better promote wheat growth.

To improve the success of expanding ecosystem restoration efforts, technical guiding-standards are being developed in many nations. Whether these protocols have been well adopted to guide restoration practices remains unknown, especially in developing countries where policies evolve rapidly to balance socioeconomic development with ecosystem restoration. By conducting text semantic mining analyses, we reveal widespread discrepancies between China’s coastal restoration practices and protocols over the past four decades. Over 60% of executed restoration projects had no detailed technical standards to guide implementation, especially for severely degraded ecosystems. Development of these standards lagged significantly behind project implementation, was poorly enforced, and focused more on monitoring than guiding good restoration designs and adaptive management, likely undermining restoration performance. Nevertheless, current policies toward prioritizing ecosystem restoration offer opportunities to remedy this issue. Enforcing policies to ensure that practices are guided by protocols is necessary to promote coastal restoration success in China and globally as nations strive to achieve ambitious restoration targets. Lack of detailed technical standards, poor implementation, focusing less on good restoration designs, and adaptive management undermined the coastal restoration practices in China in last four decades, according to a text semantic mining analysis.

Frequent river diversions can change the sedimentary characteristics of great river deltas. However, for some river diversions, the impact of water and sediment changes on sediment characteristics and vegetation replacement remain poorly understood. In this study, the Yellow River Delta (YRD), with frequent diversions, was used as the research area, and a core collection and analysis conducted. By examining composition, structure, and influencing factors on sporopollen patterns, changing vegetation patterns and associated characteristics in the YRD evolution process were revealed. YRD vegetation types had not changed over the past century. Gramineae, Chenopodiaceae, Artemisia, and Fabaceae were the main terrestrial herbs, with Polygonum, Typha, and Cyperaceae the main aquatic/wet vegetation. Vertical differences in sporopollen concentrations were related to frequent YRD diversion, and lateral differences were mainly affected by the depositional environment. Deposition depth and water travel time exerted significant positive effects of 0.87 and 0.80 on arbor sporopollen concentrations, respectively. Annual sediment load and runoff had positive and negative effects (1.81 and 2.21, respectively) on shrub sporopollen concentrations. The sporopollen concentration in terrestrial herbs was significantly affected by salinity, pH, and deposition depth. The concentration in aquatic/wet herbs was positively affected by the average annual sediment load, water travel time, deposition depth, clay content, and salinity (effect values of 3.27, 0.91, 0.77, 0.63, and 0.32, respectively). These results provide sediment records for the YRD, help reconstruct the paleoenvironment, and provide suitable ecological references for coastal wetland restoration.

Hydrological connectivity associated with salinity (termed water-salt connectivity) plays a critical role in estuarine ecological processes. Understanding the dynamic mechanisms through which water-salt connectivity influences vegetation is essential for effective coastal wetland conservation and restoration. This study establishes a Water-Salt Index of Connectivity (WSIC) model to investigate how intertidal vegetation distribution and development patterns respond to water-salt connectivity dynamics. Key findings reveal: (1) The WSIC model shows strong stability and significant correlations with measured soil salinity (P = 0.001), effectively characterizing intertidal salt transport and its associated heterogeneity; (2) Since 1987, rising-tide WSIC (WSICR) in the Yellow River Delta has declined 42 % (from -2.080 ± 1.037 to -2.973 ± 2.597, P < 0.001) with stable falling-tide WSIC (WSICF), signaling regional desalination; (3) Elevated WSIC corresponds to vegetation simplification and density reduction (P < 0.05). Species-specific adaptations drive zonal patterns, with vegetation transition zones shifting seaward due to intensified competition in high-WSIC areas; (4) WSIC regulates intraspecies biomass distribution, with Suaeda salsa displaying inverse correlations, others unimodal responses, indicating habitat contraction for S. salsa; (5) Reduced WSICR creates low-salinity niches for Spartina alterniflora invasion (P < 0.001), while increased salt retention post-invasion accelerates its expansion. Incorporating dynamic water-salt processes into ecological modeling, this research transcends conventional static environmental frameworks, providing actionable insights for wetland management, endemic species preservation, and invasive species control.

Wetlands, also known as the “kidney of the earth,” are one of Earth’s three major ecosystems, along with oceans and forests [...]

The ecological quality of river basins is significantly influenced by the complex network of river structures and their connectivity. This study measured the temporal and spatial variability of ecological quality, as reflected by remote sensing ecological indices (RSEI), and examined their responses to river network connectivity (RNC). In total, 8 RNC indices, including river structure of river density (Dr), water surface ratio (Wr), edge-node ratio (β), and network connectivity (γ), and node importance indices of betweenness centrality (BC), PageRank (PG_R), out_degree centrality (Out_D), and in_closeness centrality (In_C), were generated at the subbasin scale. Our results highlighted the significance of RNC in influencing both the values and variability of RSEI, and the extent of this influence varied across different time periods. Specifically, three distinct clusters can be extracted from the temporal variability of RSEI, representing wet, near-normal, and dry years. The river structure index of γ significantly influenced the spatial patterns of subbasin RSEIs, particularly in wet years (R2 = 0.554), whereas β displayed a pronounced U-shape correlation with subbasin RSEIs in dry years (R2 = 0.512). Although node importance indices did not correlate directly with subbasin RSEI levels, as the river structure indices did, they significantly positively affected temporal variability of subbasin RSEIs (EI_SD_t). Higher values of PG_R, Out_D, and In_C were associated with increased subbasin RSEI variability. Based on these correlations, we developed RNC-based RSEI and EI_SD_t models with high adjusted coefficients of determination to facilitate the assessment of ecosystem quality. This study provides essential insights into ecosystem dynamics related to river connectivity within a basin and offers valuable guidance for effective watershed management and conservation efforts aimed at enhancing ecological resilience and sustainability.

Land use and land cover (LULC) change is one of the dominant factors contributing to coastal wetland degradation and loss. Most studies focused on LULC changes or whether they influenced on ecosystems. However, few studies quantitatively assessed the impact of different LULCs on hydrological connectivity. This study aimed to understand how LULC affected hydrological connectivity in the coastal wetlands in the Yellow River Delta (YRD), China, from 1985 to 2020. A framework from a landscape resistance perspective was used to evaluate the LULC's influence. LULCs were converted into a series of resistance surfaces whose values represent the degree to which LULC facilitated or restricted hydrological connectivity. The LULC's influence was evaluated by parameterizing the resistance surfaces using observed hydrological connectivity. The results showed that human-related LULC had more influence on hydrological connectivity. The critical time of LULC's influence on hydrological connectivity was 1985–1990 and 2010–2015. The critical areas were Zone II, Zone I, and Zone VI. The LULCs of agriculture, industry, town/city, and river had the most significant impact on the hydrological connectivity of the YRD coastal wetland. The result could direct LULC planning to mitigate the negative effect on coastal wetlands and provide support for the environmental impact assessment of coastal development practices. This paper advances the study by assessing LULCs' impact on hydrological connectivity and providing a quantitative method. The framework of this study enriches the coastal wetland conservation theory and policy-making of coastal management.

Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the effect of land use/land cover (LULC) and soil depth on soil carbon storage, through the manipulation of external carbon input and turnover processes, is crucial for accurate predictions of regional soil carbon storage. Numerous research investigations have been conducted to examine the impact of LULC on the storage and cycling of carbon in the surface soils of coastal wetlands. Nevertheless, there remains a dearth of understanding concerning the implications of this phenomenon on subterranean soils, a crucial factor in discerning the capacity for carbon sequestration in coastal wetlands and implementing measures for their preservation. The study focused on the Yellow River Delta (YRD) in China, which serves as a representative model system. It aimed to assess the impact of LULC as well as soil depth on carbon storage. This was achieved by a combination of remote sensing interpretation and field samplings. The findings of the study indicate that there was an increase in soil organic carbon storage with both the area covered and the depth of the soil across the four different land use types, namely forest, grass, tidal flat, and cultivated land. Cultivated land was identified as the predominant LULC type, encompassing 41.73% of the entire YRD. Furthermore, it accounted for a substantial carbon storage of 76.08%. In comparison to soil layers at depths of 0-20 cm and 20-40 cm, 40-60 cm was discovered to have the maximum carbon storage, accounting for 42.29% of total carbon storage. Furthermore, one of the main factors influencing carbon storage is salinity, which shows a negative association with carbon storage. Moreover, the aforementioned findings underscore the significance of the conjoined physical and chemical properties induced by LULC in influencing the dynamics of soil carbon. This suggests that the inclusion of deep soil carbon in the estimation and restoration of soil carbon storage is necessary. This inclusion will support the realization of the United Nations' "Toward Zero Carbon" effort and facilitate the implementation of China's national carbon neutrality objectives.

Tidal inundation is a major stress in salt marshes that regulates the patterns of plant distribution and the associated functions provided by vegetation communities. Usually, frequency is used to represent inundation intensity and can be estimated using elevation. However, frequency is only a statistical indicator of tidal inundation conditions during a given period, which ignores many details of tidal inundation characteristics based on a single tidal event. On the scale of a single tidal event, duration and water depth are important characteristics for describing inundation conditions, which vary along the elevation gradient. The frequency of tidal events of a specific duration and water depth also varied. To unravel the impact of varied inundation characteristics on the key life stages of a foundation plant, we designed an experiment with varied inundation treatments of different frequencies, durations, and depths. Our results showed that the frequency, duration, and depth of inundation events significantly influenced seed emergence, seedling survival, and growth. Stress can be strengthened by a higher frequency with a longer duration and larger depth. Among these factors, frequency had a dominant impact, followed by duration and water depth. Specifically, there is a trade-off between frequency, duration, and depth, suggesting that an inundation event with shallower depth and/or shorter duration would reduce the stress from higher frequency. The findings fill a gap in the loss of details of varied inundation characteristics on plant establishment on a fine scale. Further, it will help explicit inundation stress more accurately and clearly and provide important implications for stress relief solutions in coastal ecological restoration.

Constructed wetlands (CWs), as nature-based solutions for pollutant control, have been widely applied globally. The functionality of CW ecosystems begins to degrade when certain ecological thresholds are exceeded, where the ecosystem's response and functions stay within a 'safe ecological limit'. However, the sustainability of these functions and their ecological thresholds have not yet been quantitatively assessed. This gap limits our understanding of the sustainability of CWs and the "safe operating space" for environmental management. Here, we evaluate whether and how the nitrogen and phosphorus removal functions in large-scale hybrid CWs (HCWs) of a mega-city change over time, as well as how they respond to changes in pollutant loads, stoichiometric characteristics, hydrology, and environmental conditions. Though it has been running stably for 6 years, the large HCWs achieved average total nitrogen (TN) and phosphorus (TP) removal efficiencies of 81.0 % and 55.8 % from 2017 to 2020, respectively, with widespread synergistic relationships. This indicates that CWs have a long-term effect of removing nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants for over 10 years. A decrease in the stoichiometric characteristic TN:TP from inflow to outflow was a signal for preferential nitrogen removal (35 vs. 6.8, mass based). Importantly, the TN and TP removal efficiencies and their synergistic relationship change over operation time, with threshold points occurring at 378 days, 259 days, 1040 days, and 647 days, respectively. TN and TP removal efficiencies and their synergistic relationship were controlled by the thresholds of nitrogen (9.6-12.1 mg/L) and phosphorus (0.6-0.8 mg/L) loads, TN:TP (7.59), water levels (25.5-25.6 m), water replenishment (0.14 m), dissolved oxygen (5.8-9.0 mg/L), temperature (9.3-13.9 degrees C), and pH (8.8-10.1) levels. The thresholds of cross-attribute driving factors significantly affect the sustainability of nutrient removal functions. Our findings provide new insights into the threshold effects of pollutant loads and their stoichiometric characteristics, hydrology, and environmental conditions on the water purification functions of CWs. This offers critical support for defining the safe operating space in the sustainable management of CWs in mega-cities.

Deltas are in a dynamic balance due to the impact of fluvial and coastal flooding, and hydrological connectivity plays an important role. In recent decades, the dynamic equilibrium has been influenced by upstream and local human activities, including sea reclamation activities. However, in most instances, the influence of human activities has not been explicitly distinguished and quantified in detail. In this paper, the influence of sea reclamation activities on hydrological connectivity in the Yellow River Delta was quantified by parameterizing the resistance surfaces (a spatial layer that assigns a value to each landscape feature, indicating the degree to which that variable impedes or promotes movement) that includes sea reclamation activities. By optimizing a functional relationship between landscape features and hydrological connectivity (water flow movement patterns), the values in the resistance surfaces could be assigned. We first calculated hydrological distances among bifurcations from 1985 to 2020 with a 5-year interval representing the hydrological connectivity of each tidal creek. The sea reclamation activities in the YRD were classified into four: reclaimed land, sea enclosure activity, freshwater resource facilities, and engineering in the oil field to create resistance surfaces. We identified that the periods of 1990–1995 and 2000–2005 were under the most severe influence of sea reclamation activities. Sea enclosure activity, freshwater resource facilities, and engineering in oil fields played major roles in composing resistance surfaces. Mariculture (quantified relative resistance value, 1.00), reservoir (0.92), agriculture (0.91), and river (0.97) were the features with the highest resistance values in the initial and mature development stages. The formation of resistance (costs to movement) was due to human activities and natural factors, for example, the evolution of tidal creeks. To develop the resource in tidal flats sustainably, systematic monitoring and sufficient conservation awareness were required. This study contributed to coastal management and planning by providing a quantified assessment of different types of sea reclamation activities.

Invasive engineering species are well-known to have the capacity to alter abiotic and biotic ecosystem characteristics and associated ecological processes. However, it has not been investigated whether and how they can alter reciprocal interactions between biological and physical processes, known as bio-geomorphic feedbacks, which may indirectly influence their invasion and native species. Here, using a tidal channel-salt marsh invaded by Spartina alterniflora in the Yellow River Delta of China as a model system, we first quantified the biogeomorphic impacts caused by the invasion and subsequently examined the feedbacks of such altered biogeomorphic impacts on its self-expansion and the growth of native dominants - Suaeda salsa. Field observations and experiments showed that invaded S. alterniflora significantly promoted the sedimentation rate within its expansion belt along tidal channel margins, resulting in marginal depressions with increased inundation conditions. The altered bio-geomorphic processes considerably reduced the survival and growth of natives, while the impacts on S. alterniflora seedlings were threshold-dependent. Seedling establishment, growth and asexual expansion of S. alterniflora were facilitated when the inundation depth of these depressions fell within a threshold (approximately < 15 cm). In contrast, as the inundation depth exceeded the threshold, inundation-related stress occurred and inhibited its growth performance. As such, invasive S. alterniflora could be facilitated to expand laterally into salt marshes while suppressing the growth range of natives for the foreseeable future. Our findings suggest that species invasions contribute substantially to existing bio-geomorphic feedback loops, leading to observed effects on population dynamics that should be integrated into the restoration of salt marshes that have undergone invasion-induced geomorphological metamorphosis.

Abstract Health assessment is vital for ecological protection, restoration and management of lake ecosystems. Although previous studies have established many frameworks and assessment index systems, most of them primarily focused on the single measurements of the natural status of ecosystems under external pressures. However, there is a lack of comprehensive assessment models based on the ecosystem integrity and services from the perspective of balancing the natural health status and human demand. In this study, we proposed an improve method that consider the ecosystem integrity and social services demand, which comprised five categories: physical structure, hydrology, water quality, aquatic organisms, and social service function. We used the Baiyangdian lake of the Haihe river basin in China as a case study to apply the assessment method, and the results show that (1) the overall level of lake health is “sub-healthy”, and the “sub-healthy” sample sites dominate the lake areas in the current year. (2) the index system provided a perspective to reveal the complex interactions among ecosystem integrity, services and ecosystem health status, which can characterize the health status more comprehensively compared to the single index or indicator species method. (3) the assessment method in this study is capable in evaluating the health status of Baiyangdian lake, the results can be used for decision makers to lake ecosystem protection, restoration and management.