Adoptation of plant facilitation effect on ancient ecological agricultural records in China

Most of the records on interspecific relationship in agriculture and forest ecosystems were conserved during the long agricultural history of China. The interspecific association is divided into competition, facilitation and neutrality, where competition is studied in a greater depth. There was an increasing attention on facilitation introduced by the mainstream ecology theories in the past 20 years. China owns voluminous ancient books in which the historical documents left a whole lot of relevant records concerning relationships among species. The records were ancient and accumulated over a long term in the productive practices of observations and experiences. This paper analyzed the ecological mechanisms of these records, most of which were about seedling shading and soil nutrients improvement using legume nitrogen fixation. There was also a small volume of record on buffering extreme temperature (high temperatures in summer and low temperatures in winter), reducing weed competition, preventing predation and alleviating water stress. There was not only rich records about the utilization of facilitation effect between the two plant species in ancient China, but also on the integrated and complex relationship among several plant species as well as the complex relationships between plants and animals in the ecosystem. This was especially the case for southern China which owned the records on traditional experiences on building complex ecosystem of orchards, tea plantations and other aspects of the ecosystem by the diverse plants and animals. The study sorted and analyzed ancient literatures on plant facilitation effect based on ecological theory. The study hoped to draw more attention on traditional experiences, especially those of ecologists. We hoped that more and more researchers investigate and verify the authenticity and applicability of the records on the basis of the theories of modern ecology and experimental methods to provide more useful references for ecological agriculture and modern forestry.