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Species composition and community structure of  a spruce-fir forest and a larch forest  on the northern slope of Changbai Mountains, Northeast China.

KUANG Xu1,2, XING Ding-liang1,2, ZHANG Zhao-chen1,2, SONG Hou-juan1,2, WANG Yun-yun1,2, FANG Shuai1,2, YUAN Zuo-qiang1, YE Ji1, LIN Fei1,2, WANG Xu-gao1, HAO Zhan-qing1   

  1. (1State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110164, China;  2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China)
  • Online:2014-08-18 Published:2014-08-18

Abstract: Spruce-fir forest is the best protected forest vegetation, while larch forest is intrazonal vegetation on the northern slope of Changbai Mountains. To further understand their species composition and community structure, we established a 4 hm2 forest permanent plot in each of these two forests in 2010. All free-standing plant species with DBH (diameter at breast height) ≥1 cm were mapped, tagged, and identified to species. The results showed that there were 9257 stems belonging to 8640 genotype individuals, 22 species, 6 genera and 12 families in the sprucefir forest plot, while 4060 stems belonging to 3696 genotype individuals, 22 species, 8 genera and 16 families in the larch forest plot. Species composition in the two plots was very similar. Most of the species belonged to the Changbai Mountains plant flora. The analysis of species’ importance values showed that there were dominant species in both communities. The spruce-fir forest was dominated by Abies nephrolepis and Larix olgensis, whose importance values accounted for 38.7% and 23.9% of the sum of importance values over all species in the plot, respectively. The larch forest was dominated solely by L. olgensis, whose importance value accounted for 61.9% of the sum of importance values over all species in the plot. Both forests were in good condition of regeneration and showed a reversed ‘J’ type in tree size distributions at community level. However, different species showed different shapes in size distribution in the two forests. A. nephrolepis showed a reversed ‘J’ type size distribution in the spruce-fir forest, while L. olgensis with DBH≥10 cm showed a hump-shaped distribution in the larch forest. Spatial distribution patterns of the main species changed differently with size class and spatial scales. Common species had different spatial distribution patterns in the two plots.