Abstract: With the advancement of the national river strategy, the natural restoration of degraded riparian ecosystems, represented by the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, has emerged as a highly challenging task. However, the current ecological restoration efforts in China have yet to prioritize the restoration process of the ecosystem, resulting in the failure to achieve the anticipated goals of structural and functional improvement. The fundamental reason behind this phenomenon lies in our insufficient understanding of the fundamental characteristics and formation mechanisms of plant adaptive strategies during the natural successional process of riparian zones, as well as their crucial role in the self-organization of riparian ecosystems.
This paper aimed to provide an in-depth exploration of the unique trade-off strategies between plant growth and flood tolerance in riparian zones, by reviewing the research progress in plant ecophysiology, adaptive strategies, and related fields. Riparian plants adjusted their survival strategies to adapt to environmental changes, achieving a balance and optimization of resources between growth and flood tolerance, which was a key factor in the self-organization process of riparian systems. Therefore, this paper proposed a novel approach to natural restoration of riparian zones based on the trade-off strategy between plant growth and flood tolerance. Additionally, a "minimum intervention" ecological restoration principle based on plant adaptive trade-off strategies in riparian zones was presented. By analyzing the trade-off strategies of plant adaptation and their influencing factors, the threshold for initiating the self-organization process of riparian ecosystems was elucidated, maximizing the utilization of the ecosystem's self-recovery capacity, and achieving ecological restoration of riparian zones.
Finally, based on the exploration of the relationship between plant adaptive strategies and natural restoration in riparian zones, this paper provided several prospects for future research and development directions regarding plant adaptive trade-off strategies and natural restoration in riparian zones. A comprehensive understanding of riparian plant adaptive strategies and their implications for natural recovery can contribute to the promotion of riparian ecosystem restoration and enhancement of ecosystem quality. This research is of significant theoretical and practical implications for the ecological restoration of riparian zones.