Notice of RetractionVegetation Distribution Characteristics and Shell Sand Physicochemical Properties in Shell Ridge on the Southwestern Coast of Bohai Bay

Notice of Retraction

After careful and considered review of the content of this paper by a duly constituted expert committee, this paper has been found to be in violation of IEEE´s Publication Principles.

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Little information was available about the ecosystem of shell ridge along coastline. The vegetation distribution characteristics and physicochemical properties of shell sands were thus conducted in the shell ridge located in Binzhou national nature reserve of shell ridge and wetland, Shandong province, China (38°10´~38°19´N and 117°51´~118°02´E). Results showed that the dominating plant species occurred in this area was divided into two groups: salt-tolerant type and salt-intolerant type. Salt concentration of shell sand was less than 0.3%, showing increasing with the increase of sand profile depth, and was far lower than that of soil in this area. Shell sand available P and K contents were also significantly great in the deep layers (P<;0.05). However, dissolved organic carbon and available N contents decreased with sand profile increasing. Although shell sands can provide a habitat with low salinity and supply nutrients to support the development of vegetation, low water-holding capability and nutrients contents make shell ridge ecosystem much fragile. Therefore, the negative effects of human activities should be avoided and shell sand mining be strictly prohibited in this area.