Species Diversity and Distribution Pattern of Heritage Trees in the Rapidly-Urbanizing Province of Jiangsu, China

Abstract

Heritage trees have important ecological, historical, and landscape values in cities. Rapid urbanization may cause dramatic change of ecosystem functions of cities, thereby inevitably affecting the growth performance of ancient trees. However, few studies have explored their species diversity and spatial differentiation on the medium scale in the scenario of urbanization in China. Here, we took Jiangsu Province in China, with developed economy in recent decades, as a typical case. Based on the provincial forest inventory data, we addressed the abundance, species richness, tree density, and species diversity of ancient trees in 13 cities, and their tree habitat, growth status, and tree age, as well. Then, we compared the spatial differentiation of tree attributes by 13 districts and nine tree habitats. We also applied detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) and redundancy analysis (RDA) to determine the leading factor influencing their distribution pattern. The 7678 heritage trees in Jiangsu belonged to 215 species. More than half of the trees were native with domination by Ginkgo biloba. Villages and farmlands accommodated the most heritage trees while parks and gardens harbored the most species. This indicates that sparsely-populated rural community and scenic areas with open space are conducive to accommodating more urban heritage trees. The tier 3 heritage trees (100–299 years) accounted for about 80% of the total. Overall, most ancient trees in Jiangsu grew well. The species diversity index (H) of 13 cities was between 1.98 and 3.39. The H value among the 13 cities was largely affected by elevation range shift, while the tree density by GDP per capita. DCA showed that the ratio of unique species was >40%, and that dominant species presented little habitat preference. Therefore, species diversity among different cities are affected by climate and topography, as well as human factors. With the accelerating urbanization process, tree habitat, cultural tradition, and urban history should be taken into consideration for management and conservation of heritage trees in the future.

Differential characteristics and driving forces of the spatial distribution of heritage trees in Luoyang, an ancient capital of China

“…Then, species, coordinates, tree age, and other information of heritage trees were collated and supplied in accordance with Cloud Platform for Forest Genetic Resources Information of Henan Province, in which the data were collected on the basis of provincial forest field surveys from 2016 to 2020 in Henan Province. The investigations of ancient trees were conducted in accordance with the Chinese government's national-level document "Technical Guidelines for the Document Establishment of a General Survey of National Ancient and Famous Trees" in 2001, which has been widely used in China (Li and Zhang, 2021). First, based on the coordinates and location description, heritage trees in Luoyang were selected as the study object.…”

“…2) The influencing factors of the distribution of heritage trees can be divided into two categories: natural and human factors. The former primarily includes latitude and longitude, topography (e.g., elevation, and slope) (Lindenmayer and Laurance, 2016;Wan et al, 2020), and climate (e.g., average annual temperature and average annual precipitation) (Liu et al, 2020;Li and Zhang, 2021). The latter can be measured by human activity intensity and urban development, such as population density and GDP per capita.…”

Predicting the potential distribution of four endangered holoparasites and their primary hosts in China under climate change

“…Environmental factors affect the growth, development and distribution of plants ( Hamann et al, 2021 ; Li and Zhang, 2021 ). Climate is one of the key factors shaping the future distribution of plants ( Gomes et al, 2020 ; Tang et al, 2021 ).…”

Protecting Rural Large Old Trees with Multi-Scale Strategies: Integrating Spatial Analysis and the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) for Socio-Cultural Value Assessment

“…In China, two rounds of the national survey of ancient and famous tree resources were conducted in 2001 and 2015, respectively. Normative guidance for the survey includes the Chinese government's national-level document "Technical Guidelines for the Document Establishment of a General Survey of National Ancient and Famous Trees", issued in 2001, as well as the "Technical regulation for the Surveying of Old and Notable Trees", released in 2016 [37,41]. According to the above guidance and relevant articles [10,17,21], a scattered large old tree in this study was defined as a tree or shrub over 100 years of age and distributed in human-dominated landscapes (excluding national forest farms, natural forests, and protected areas).…”

“…DCA is derived from CA (correspondence analysis). But DCA eliminates the "arch effect" by ordering old growth habitats so that similar species are close together and dissimilar species are farther apart within the same sample, thus revealing the ecological relationships between species and their environments [21,41,54]. The results of the DCA analysis plot the species or environment on two axes, each corresponding to a dimension in space [55].…”