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Responses of boreal forest landscape in northern Great Xing’an Mountains of Northeast China to climate change.

LI Xiao-na1,2, HE Hong-shi1, WU Zhi-wei1, LIANG Yu1   

  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:2012-12-18 Published:2012-12-18

Abstract: With the combination of forest landscape model (LANDIS) and forest gap model (LINKAGES), this paper simulated the effects of climate change on the boreal forest landscape in the Great Xing’an Mountains, and compared the direct effects of climate change and the effects of climate warminginduced fires on the forest landscape. The results showed that under the current climate conditions and fire disturbances, the forest landscape in the study area could maintain its dynamic balance, and Larix gmelinii was still the dominant tree species. Under the future climate and fire disturbances scenario, the distribution area of L. gmelinii and Pinus pumila would be decreased, while that of Betula platyphylla, Populus davidiana, Populus suaveolens, Chosenia arbutifolia, and Pinus sylvestris var. mongolica would be increased, and the forest fragmentation and forest diversity would have an increase. The changes of the forest landscape lagged behind climate change. Climate warming would increase the growth of most tree species except L. gmelinii, while the increased fires would increase the distribution area of P. davidiana, P. suaveolens, and C. arbutifolia and decrease the distribution area of L. gmelinii, P. sylvestris var. mongolica, and P. pumila. The effects of climate warminginduced fires on the forest landscape were almost equal to the direct effects of climate change, and aggravated the direct effects of climate change on forest composition, forest landscape fragmentation, and forest landscape diversity.