PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #32: Testing Ecological Theory in Restoration Practice.
Presiding: C. Brown
Tuesday, August 6. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Grand Ballroom West, Radisson.

Stucture and dynamics of low sub-tropical forests of South China: Effects of adjacent communities.

Peng, Shaolin^*,1, Shen, Weijun¹, Zhao, Ping¹, ¹ South China Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong, P.R.China

ABSTRACT- We studied the dynamics of an ecotonal forest community that was located in between a Pinus massoniana pine forest and a mixed forest community in the low sub-tropics of China based on field data collected over a 16-year period. Several community attributes were examined, including species richness, diversity, leaf area index, biomass and productivity. Comparative ordination and cluster techniques were used to analyze the effects of adjacent forest stands on the structure and dynamics of the ecotonal community. The results showed that the ecotonal community, which was characterized as a pine forest 16 years ago, rapidly changed to a mixed forest while its adjacent communities (pine and mixed forests) remained unchanged. The boundary of the ecotonal community moved over 100 m into the pine forest. The consequence of edge effect was consistent with the direction of succession in this region, suggesting that the landscape context played an important role in determining local community structure and dynamics. Because the ecotonal community became increasingly similar to one of its neighboring forest communities (i.e., the mixed forest), the degree of landscape fragmentation was substantially reduced. We also discussed that the structural dynamics of the ecotonal community might shed some lights on the regional vegetation restoration practice.

KEY WORDS: ecotonal community, succession, vegetation restoration, low sub-tropics