An optimal proportion of mixing broad‐leaved forest for enhancing the effective productivity of moso bamboo

Abstract

Moso bamboos (Phyllostachys edulis) are important forestry plants in southern China, with substantial roles to play in regional economic and ecological systems. Mixing broad-leaved forests and moso bamboos is a common management practice in China, and it is fundamental to elucidate the interactions between broad-leaved trees and moso bamboos for ensuring the sustainable provision of ecosystem services. We examine how the proportion of broad-leaved forest in a mixed managed zone, topology, and soil profile affects the effective productivity of moso bamboos (i.e., those with significant economic value), using linear regression and generalized additive models. Bamboo's diameter at breast height follows a Weibull distribution. The importance of these variables to bamboo productivity is, respectively, slope (25.9%), the proportion of broad-leaved forest (24.8%), elevation (23.3%), gravel content by volume (16.6%), slope location (8.3%), and soil layer thickness (1.2%). Highest productivity is found on the 25° slope, with a 600-m elevation, and 30% broad-leaved forest. As such, broad-leaved forest in the upper slope can have a strong influence on the effective productivity of moso bamboo, ranking only after slope and before elevation. These factors can be considered in future management practice.

Soil respiration of a Moso bamboo forest significantly affected by gross ecosystem productivity and leaf area index in an extreme drought event

“…Moso bamboo sequesters 4.91–5.45 t C ha −1 each year ( Zhou & Jiang, 2004 ), showing great potential for alleviating global warming by carbon fixation. Previous studies on Moso bamboo have concentrated on carbon storage, balance and its distribution in the ecosystem ( Li et al, 2013 ), productivity of bamboo forest ( Cheng et al, 2015 ; Isagi et al, 1997 ), and the variation in soil organic carbon stocks ( Guan et al, 2015 ). Previous studies reported a close relationship between R s and biotic factors in other forest types ( Hibbard et al, 2005 ), suggesting a coupling between forest canopy assimilation and carbon emissions from soil.…”

Variation in individual biomass decreases faster than mean biomass with increasing density of bamboo stands

“…Many biological measures exhibit skewed rather than normal distributions yet their distributions fit TPL. An example is the diameter at breast height of moso bamboos (Cheng et al 2015), which is skewed yet conforms to TPL. The deviation of plant biomass from a normal distribution is likely related to the spatial distribution of soil nutrients.…”

Using physiological and morphological methods for comparison: is mixed Phyllostachys edulis and Carya illinoinensis a reasonable mixed forest model?

“…However, mixed P. edulis forests can effectively compensate for this weakness. Additionally, mixed forest construction improves forestland productivity while lowering the incidence and severity of insect pest and microbial pathogen attacks [8][9][10]. Mixing of C. illinoinensis with many other species has also showed a good growth trend [11,12].…”