The National Natural Science Foundation of China announced the results of its project review during the centralized acceptance period in 2022. Researcher Yan Yuchun, a researcher from the Grassland Ecological Remote Sensing Innovation Team of the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP) of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), led the declaration of "Formation and dispersal mechanisms of tumble balls of tumble plants and their restoration effect on degraded grassland" key fund project having been funded.

China's grassland area is 3.97 billion mu (according to the third national land survey), accounting for 27.5% of the country's land area. It is an important ecosystem and natural resource in China, and plays a fundamental strategic role in maintaining national ecological security and promoting the construction of ecological civilization.

With the intensification of human activities and the impact of climate change, China's grasslands have been degraded almost everywhere (more than 90% of grasslands have been degraded to varying degrees), resulting in a significant decline in various functions of the ecosystem.

The coexistence of species with different adaptation strategies in grasslands is the basis for the formation and maintenance of ecosystem multi-functionality. Analyzing the adaptation and impact mechanisms of species with special adaptation strategies is helpful for the in-depth understanding of the formation process and maintenance mechanism of grassland ecosystem multi-functionality. Which has important theoretical and practical significance for the formulation of optimal management and related recovery strategies.

Tumble plants are life-type groups with special adaptation strategies that are widely distributed in grasslands in arid and semi-arid regions. The presence of tumble plants plays an important role in grasslands’ ecosystem stability and the maintenance of ecological versatility in the context of climate change and grassland degradation.

This project is the first to propose a research idea to explore the effect of tumble plants on grassland soil nutrient enrichment and community construction from the perspective of tumble balls migration and seed dispersal, and aims to systematically reveal the process of grassland ecosystem restoration and maintenance from the perspective of tumble plants. Through the implementation of the project, it is expected to achieve breakthroughs in the theory of grassland ecosystem succession and the formation and maintenance mechanism of ecosystem multi-functionality.