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Community heterogeneity of undergrowth vegetation in Pinus tabuliformis forest on the Loess Plateau of Northwest China.

WANG Shi-xiong1, ZHAO Liang1, LI Na1, GUO Hua2, WANG Xiao-an2*, DUAN Ren-yan3#br#   

  1. (1School of Biological and Food Engineering, Suzhou University, Suzhou 234000, Anhui, China; 2College of Life Sciences, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710062, Shaanxi, China; 3College of Life Sciences, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246011, Anhui, China).
  • Online:2016-05-10 Published:2016-05-10

Abstract: Community heterogeneity has particular relevance for explaining ecological patterns in fragmented habitats. Using compositional heterogeneity as a measure of community heterogeneity, community heterogeneity patterns were investigated for pine plantations (Pinus tabuliformis) in the Ziwu Mountains of Loess Plateau, Northwest China. The patterns of two community heterogeneity components (i.e. nestedness component and turnover component) were also assessed using additive partitioning. The results showed that: (1) the pine plantations generally displayed high community heterogeneity, which increased with the quantity of spatial grains (i.e. sampling units) and eventually approached to a stable state; (2) both species turnover and nestedness component had significant effects on community heterogeneity, and the former played a dominant role at all scales and layers; (3) habitat heterogeneity was significantly positively correlated to both community heterogeneity and its turnover component, and explained a larger proportion of their variations (71%-84%); by contrast, it was significantly negatively correlated to the nestedness component, and accounted for a smaller proportion of the nestedness component variation (25%-44%). The dominance of the spatial turnover component suggested the potential conservation values of all sample plots for pine plantations, and higher habitat heterogeneity was necessary for restoring species diversity of plantations.

Key words: urban impervious surface, soil fauna, community structure, diversity.