Agricultural drainage ditches are a reflection of the disturbance caused by agriculture and other human perturbations associated with agricultural activities, and the density of them can be seen as an important gradient reflecting local disturbance. However, no studies to date have examined the changes in wetland communities in relation to drainage ditch densities, yet such information is urgently needed for the conservation of wetland ecosystems facing intensive cultivation. In this paper, we inventoried 67 plots at four wetland mosaics with the ditch density values ranged 0–3.6 km km⁻² in the Sanjiang Plain, and the species richness, composition and diversity were compared among those four sites. Linear regression was used to explore relationships between wetland community pattern and agricultural ditch density, and the results show that there is significant relationship (r² = 0.56, P <0.001). The diversity comparisons show that there exist a clear negative relationship between ditch density and species diversity indices, and the species diversity did not differ greatly among sites, but species composition varied considerably. With increasing ditch density, an increasing loss of indigenous wetland species paralleled with an increasing incursion of upland species. Management implication from the drainage ditches is that the density of 1.2 km km⁻² be the maximum value suitable for the protection of native wetlands in Sanjiang plain.
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