Forest cover types derived from Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery for Changbai Mountain area of China

Abstract

The distributions of various forest cover types on Changbai Mountain of northeastern China were examined by interpreting Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite data. The area studied consists of the Changbai Nature Reserve plus an 8 km wide buffer zone. The dominant forest cover types were mixed Korean pine (Pinuskoraiensis Sieb. & Zucc.) hardwood forest below 1100 m above sea level (asl) and evergreen coniferous forest between 1100 and 1650 m asl. These two forest cover types accounted for about 70% of the area inside the reserve, and 50% of the area outside the reserve. Other forest cover types included aspen (Populusdavidiana Dode) –white birch (Betulaplatyphylla Sukachev) forest, hardwood forest, larch (Larixolgensis A. Henry) forest, sparse forest land, and mountain birch (Betulaermanii Cham.) forest. Above the forest line (1950 m asl), a zone of tundra was distributed on the top of Changbai Mountain. The mountain birch forest was located between tundra and the evergreen forest. Human-altered areas, including forest clearcuts and urban areas, accounted for only 10% of the whole study area. More than 90% (in area) of the human-altered areas was found in the zone surrounding the reserve. To better protect the old-growth forest ecosystems inside and outside Changbai Nature Reserve, conservation planning for the reserve and forest management for the surrounding area need to be modified.

Effects of land use on soil erosion and nitrogen loss in the hilly area of the Loess Plateau, China

“…The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve protects nearly 200 000 ha of natural vegetation and old-growth forest ecosystems. The reserve contains 1337 vascular plant species, including 1250 seed plant species (Xu 1992), and five vegetation zones (Wang et al 1980;Shao et al 1996) : broadleaf forest (below ' 700 m) , broadleaf-coniferous mixed forest (700-1 100 m) , coniferous forest (1 100-1700 m) , birch forest (1700-2100 m), and tundra (above 2100 m) (Figure 1). The coniferous forest zone, also called the dark coniferous forest or spruce-fir forest, is the dominant vegetation type inside the reserve (Li et al 1994;Shao et aL 1996).…”

Invariant allometric scaling of nitrogen and phosphorus in leaves, stems, and fine roots of woody plants along an altitudinal gradient

“…Changbai Mountain in China has clear vertical vegetation zonation that ranges from mixed coniferous broadleaved forest at low altitude to alpine tundra above 2100 m (Shao et al 1996;Zhang et al 2011). In this study, we investigated the N and P concentrations of the leaves (N L , P L ), stems (N S , P S ) and fine roots (N R , P R ) along an altitudinal transect (500-2,300 m) on the northern slope of Changbai Mountain, China.…”

Nutrients and biomass spatial patterns in alpine tundra ecosystem on Changbai Mountains, Northeast China

“…Now alpine tundra on Changbai Mountains is covered with abundant gramineous grasses, low shrubs or subshrubs, weeds, mosses and lichens [8]. Many studies have shown that in pioneer stages of succession, dominant species modify their environment in the short-or long-term, with effects on the vegetation dynamics [9]. Whereas the post-volcano successions have mainly been studied from a floristical and structural point of view, biomass or nutrients approaches to explain the vegetation dynamics are scarce.…”

“…Nutrients limitations are common during plant growth, especially for N and P. In general, biomass and soil nutrients change substantially with plant age. Biomass over time may differ among species, which is due to in part nutrients availability of different species over time [9,12]. P is the primary limiting nutrients in alpine tundra, although the degree of limitation varies markedly across the heterogeneous tundra landscape [13,14].…”