Relationships between soil characteristics, topography and plant diversity in a heterogeneous deciduous broad-leaved forest near Beijing, China

Abstract

Patterns of biodiversity affect soil properties at different scales, conversely, soil characteristics and landscape features influence biodiversity. It is important to determine these relationships for understanding ecosystem processes. Many studies have carried out during the last few years mainly concentrated on factors that influence plant diversity in grassland or shrubland. Focused on the topography and forest heterogeneity for a warm temperate-zone deciduous broad-leaved forest in the Donglingshan Mountains near Beijing, detailed plant diversity, topography and soil features of 76 plots were investigated in a small watershed. To discern the complex relationships, multivariate statistical analysis techniques (Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Cluster Analysis (CA) and Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA)) were employed. The results of PCA and CA showed that soil organic matter (SOM) is an important indicator to soil fertility. The coverage, richness and α-diversity index of three layers of plants (tree, shrub and herb) have unique features under different soil fertilities. High fertility plots often exist on south-facing slopes, in upper slope positions, and have gentle slope gradients. The coverage, richness and α-diversity index (Shannon index) of tree and shrub layers are the highest in mid-fertility plots, which have the highest available phosphorus (AP) and potassium (AK) contents, but those same summary descriptors for herbs are the least. CCA analysis elucidated the relationships of three different index groups (topography, soil and plant). Elevation and aspect have a close relationship with shrub richness and α-diversity. Elevation is also an important factor influencing SOM. SOM and total nitrogen have the greatest effect on plant characteristics (mainly shrub coverage) among all soil factors.

Interferências dos pedoambientes nos atributos do solo em uma topossequência de transição Campos/Floresta

“…3). Fu et al (2004), estudando as relações entre os atributos do solo, topografia e vegetação em Beijing na China, destaca a análise de agrupamento como uma ferramenta bastante eficiente no estudo de múltiplos fatores ambientais.…”

“…De acordo com Sena et al (2002), uma das vantagens destas técnicas é a formação de agrupamento de populações com características similares, permitindo um melhor entendimento das variações dos processos que ocorrem no solo. Para Fu et al (2004), com o uso destas técnicas consegui-se estabelecer inter-relações entre os aspectos topográficos e os atributos do solo. Yemefack et al (2005), por sua vez, destacam que este instrumento estatístico permite agrupar dados relacionados aos atributos do solo, favorecendo a elucidação dos processos responsáveis pela variabilidade espacial do solo.…”

The vegetation recovery pattern and affecting factors after pipeline disturbance in northwest China

“…In S3, sierozem soil and calcic brown soil had similar effects on vegetation recovery, but their effects on vegetation recovery were slower than loessal soil. In addition, the SOM and total amount of nutrition elements in the soil were positively correlated with plant growth (Fu, Liu, Ma, & Zhu, 2004;Zuo et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2012a,b). Given that most of the soil in western China is alkaline , a high pH may cause land salinization and hamper vegetation recovery.…”

Shallow landslides as drivers for slope ecosystem evolution and biophysical diversity

“…nutrients, light, water) to plants (e.g. Fu et al 2004;Gallardo-Cruz et al 2009;Yu et al 2015). These effects were seen after fitting regression tree models (Table 4; Figs.…”