Spatial structures of different-sized tree species in a secondary forest in the early succession stage
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Spatial structures of different‑sized tree species in a secondary forest in the early succession stage Yuanfa Li1 · Ji’an He1 · Sufang Yu1 · Hongxiang Wang1 · Shaoming Ye1 Received: 20 February 2019 / Revised: 7 March 2020 / Accepted: 3 April 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Forest structures may be analyzed by considering both spatial and non-spatial aspects. These aspects are generally considered independently with little attention focusing on their association. However, the relationships between spatial and non-spatial structures may aid in explaining the characteristics of forests from various perspectives. In this paper, we analyzed the spatial structures of a mixed pine-oak forest with different-sized trees and the relationships among stand spatial structural parameters. This forest, located in the Nanpan River Basin in Southwest China, was in the early stage of succession. Our results showed that: (1) most species populations and trees of different sizes were nearly randomly distributed; (2) the degree of mixture gradually increased with an increase in individual plant size; (3) dominance increased with increasing individual size and could be well modeled by a negative exponential function; (4) there were no clear differences in mixture or distribution patterns among small-, medium- and large-sized trees in vertical layers, but large-sized trees were usually more dominant than small- and medium-sized trees; and (5) the distribution patterns of trees of different sizes had no association with species mixing or dominance, although there was a significant correlation between the degree of mixing and dominance. These findings indicate that tree size directly relates to the non-spatial structure of forests while also predicting their spatial structure characteristics accurately. Keywords Diameter · Differentiation · Distribution pattern · Secondary forest · Species mixture · Vertical structure
Introduction Forests can be characterized by their structure, composition and function, and changes in any one of these aspects can lead to changes in the others (Spies 1998). Structure is a particularly important driver for understanding forest growth, ecological processes and describing forest survival in biophysical terms (Li et al. 2012). The concept of forest Communicated by David Drew. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-020-01280-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Shaoming Ye [email protected] 1
Guangxi Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Conservation, College of Forestry, Guangxi University, Daxue East Road 100, Xixiangtang District, Nanning 530004, Guangxi Province, People’s Republic of China
structure encompasses many elements at several levels and can be roughly classified into spatial and non-spatial facets (Pommerening 2002; Li et al. 2014a; Hui et al. 2019). More specifically, spatial structure is related to the location and distance
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