| A 40 hm2 plot (800m×500m) was established in Changbai Mountain to study the long term dynamics of a broad-leaved Korean pine forest. In this study, the community composition and structure, the spatial distribution of trees and species associations, as well as the effects of local habitat factors on spatial distributions of trees both in population and community levels were analyzed in the broad-leaved Korean pine forest in Changbai Mountain. This paper aims to provide theories for protection and sustainability management of broad-leaved Korean pine forest in Changbai Mountain. The brief results are as follows:There are 109410 live individuals with DBH≥1 cm, belonging to 45 species,29 genera and 18 families. Floristic characteristics of the community belong to Changbaishan plant flora. The total basal areas were 43.23 m2/hm2. The size distribution of all trees showed a reverse J shape, indicating successful community regeneration. And the size distribution of dominate tree species mainly showed nearly normal distribution, reverse J shape and bimodal distribution.Spatial distribution of dominant species showed aggregation and the aggregation intensity decreased with increasing spatial scales and then showed random patterns at larger scales. The spatial associations of six examined species (Pinus koraiensis, Tilia amurensis, Quercus mongolica, Fraxinus mandshurica, Acer mono, Acer tegmentosum) showed positively or negatively correlation at small and middle scales, but no significant association at larger scales. There was generally a positive correlation between Pinus koraiensis and Tilia amurensis at all studied scales, which indicating that the two dominate species can coexist well and the spatial structure of the two species will determine the forest community succession in the broad-leaved Korean pine forest. Quercus mongolica had negative correlations with both Tilia amurensis and Fraxinus mandshurica, indicating that the pioneer species Quercus mongolica may disappear from the community in the future succession proceed. There was a positive correlation between Acer mono and Acer pseudo-sieboldianum in small and middle scales, which meaned that the two species can coexist well.Most of the environmental factors showed significant positive spatial autocorrelation and all eight main tree species showed obvious positive correlation in small scales. In other words, environmental factors and main tree species in the plot presented aggregated distribution patterns. The habitat variables and spatial component exhibited strong interpretation power for spatial variations of tree species.49.4% of the variation in spatial distribution of tree species were explained by both the habitat variables and spatial component.44.8% of variation in spatial distribution of tree species were explained by the pure spatial component. On the contrary, only 0.5% of variation in spatial distribution of tree species could be accounted by pure habitat variables. Furthermore, the spatial distribution of tree species is closely related with soil moisture, leaf-area index, slope and aspect. The interpretation power of habitat factors for spatial variations of Fraxinus mandshurica, Acer mono, Jilia amurensis, Acer pseudo-sieboldianum, Pinus koraiensis and Quercus mongolica were 14.3%,11.2%,10.6%,4.3%,5.2% and 2.5% respectively. Besides, these habitat factors didn’t exhibit significant impact on the spatial distributions of Betula costata and Acer barbinerve. In conclusion, the influence of species’ biological features on the spatial pattern of broad-leaved Korean pine forest in the areas of Changbai Mountain is much larger than that of environmental factors. |
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