Abstract: We investigated the niche characteristics of the dominant woody plant populations in a Torreya fargesii shrub community in the Jinfo Mountains based on the formulae by Levins and Hurlbert for niche breadth and Pianka’s niche overlap. Our results showed that the T. fargesii importance value (IV) was the largest in the community. The niche breadths for Ligustrum sinense, Rubus coreanus, T. fargesii, Cotoneaster horizontalis, Hypericum monogynum, Nothopanax delavayi, Zanthoxylum ovalifolium and Viburnum chinshanense were relatively greater than those for the other populations. There was a weak positive correlation between the niche breadth and the IV, and a negative correlation between the species’ niche breadth and the variance coefficient of the IV. Of the 253 species pairs, 160 pairs overlapped > 0.6, occupying 63.24% of the total species pairs. There were relatively high niche overlaps among most of the populations, and C. horizontalis, L. sinense, H. monogynum, R. coreanus, Z. ovalifolium, V. chinshanense populations with broad niche breadth had greater overlaps with the T. fargesii population. These results indicated that intense resource competition occurs among populations.

Key words: extensive management, diversity, DGGE, soil bacterial and fungal communities, Phyllostachys edulis, cultivation history, available P, available K