Vegetation community dynamics during naturalized developmental restoration ofPinus tabulaeformisplantation in North warm temperate zone

Abstract

The study is to explore the dynamics of community structure, diversity, interspecific relationships, and stability during naturalized developmental vegetation restoration which realized by natural interaction between plantation and native trees without human’s involvement. The naturalized developmental restored forests in Baxianshan National Reserve were divided into 3 typical stages (i.e. Pinus tabulaeformis forest stage, mixed forest stage and near-natural forest stage) according to the ratio of P. tabulaeformis coverage to arbor layer, and the zonal natural secondary forests for control. According to the data of each wood gauge, we focused on the dynamics of community in terms of structure, diversity and stability and obtained following results: (1) the composition of dominant populations has kept stable since the mixed forests stage and the α-diversity increased with restoration. (2) the diameter class structure of tree layer showed a tendency of bell-shaped type towards inverted J-type, indicating an active regenerating and developmental status. (3) Niche width of dominant populations such as Juglans mandshurica, Quercus mongolica, Q. variabilis and Tilia amurensis increased during restoration, while that of Q. dentata population decreased after playing a pioneer role. (4) the proportion of negative association and high niche overlapped population pairs (>0.5) both decreased with restoration. In summary, naturalized developmental restoration has promoted the actively developing and regenerating of populations and improved the healthy restoration of plantation community. The status and interrelationships of populations were still being adjusted. The results provided a reference for revealing the dynamic characteristics of vegetation community development in naturalized developmental restoration of plantations.

Characterization of the Vegetation Community and its Contribution to a Carbon Stock in a Dry Forest

“…This distribution refers to the configura-tion of the diameter structure of a forest, where there is a predominance of young and small-diameter individuals, followed by a marked decrease in density in intermediate diameters, and finally, an increase in the number of individuals as the diameter increases. This curve represents a typical pattern of natural regeneration and development of the forest community [19]. The origin of this distribution can be influenced by various factors, such as the history of natural or anthropogenic disturbances [20], the interaction between different strata of the forest and the regeneration capacity of the present species [21].…”