Distribution pattern of plant species diversity in the mountainous Region of Ili River Valley, Xinjiang

Abstract

In this paper, detrended canonical correspondence analysis was performed to analyze the relationships between diversity indices and environmental gradients, generalized additive model was employed to modal the response curves of diversity indices to the elevation, based on data from field investigation in the mountainous region of the Ili River Valley and a survey of 94 sample plots. Two hundred fifty-nine plant species were recorded in the 94 sample plots investigated, up to 235 species all appeared in the herb layer, and the species of woody plants were very limited. The communities with a complicated vertical structure presented higher values of indices. The distribution pattern of plant species diversity on the northern slope was affected by such factors as elevation, slope aspect, slope gradient, total nitrogen, total potassium, soil water content, organic matter, and that on the southern slope was mainly affected by such factors as slope gradient, elevation, available phosphorus, and soil water content. On the northern slope, Patrick index and Shannon-Wiener index of the plant communities presented a bimodality pattern along altitude; Simpson index and Pielou index showed a partially unimodal pattern. On the southern slope all the distribution pattern of species diversity indices showed two peaks, though Patrick index's bimodality pattern was not an obvious one. These altitudinal patterns were formed by the synthetic action of a variety of environmental factors with elevation playing an important role.

Distribution patterns of groundwater‐dependent vegetation species diversity and their relationship to groundwater attributes in northwestern China

“…Xu et al . () indicated that Patrick's index and Shannon–Wiener's index of plant communities presented a bimodal pattern along a gradient of altitude, and Simpson's index and Pielou's index showed a partially unimodal pattern. This is consistent with our study.…”

Quantifying Species Diversity with a DNA Barcoding-Based Method: Tibetan Moth Species (Noctuidae) on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

“…The Shannon index and the Simpson index, which have moderate discriminant ability and moderate sensitivity to sample size, are commonly used in ecological studies [105]–[107]. However, some have recently recommended the use of the exponential of the Shannon index and the transformed Simpson index because they have the “doubling property [3]–[7].…”

Environmental influences on the successful regeneration of pine-oak mixed forests in the Qinling Mountains, China

“…Topographical factors such as elevation (Lomolino 2001;, slope gradient (Jones et al 2006), slope aspect, A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t and slope position (Yu et al 2013a) are related to, and indicators of, several abiotic factors, such as drainage conditions and nutrient flow. All these factors have multi-dimensional and multi-scaled effects on the patterns of species in montane forests (Enrico et al 2004;Rodriguez-García et al 2010;Xu et al 2011;Carrer et al 2013) and significantly affect the establishment and survival of tree seedlings. The physicochemical properties and parental materials of the soil can affect the growth and diversity of these plants (Xu et al 2011).…”

“…All these factors have multi-dimensional and multi-scaled effects on the patterns of species in montane forests (Enrico et al 2004;Rodriguez-García et al 2010;Xu et al 2011;Carrer et al 2013) and significantly affect the establishment and survival of tree seedlings. The physicochemical properties and parental materials of the soil can affect the growth and diversity of these plants (Xu et al 2011). Forest characteristics, topography, and soil properties are interrelated in the growth and establishment of species in regenerating forests, but their effects are difficult to study in isolation.…”