Characteristics And Dynamics Of Successional Community In The Evergreen Broad-Leaved Forests, Damingshan Mountain

Evergreen broad-leaved forest is a zonal vegetation type and an importantpart of land ecosystems in subtropics of the world. Based on the theories andmethodologies of vegetation ecology, restoration ecology and biodiversityconservation, detailed field investigation was conducted in the successionalcommunities of evergreen broad-leaved forest in Damingshan Mountain, thelower subtropical area of China. Community ecological characteristics such asplorristic composition, functional group, community structure, species diversity,population niche and succession dynamics were described in this paper. Theresults indicated as followings: (â…°) The florae of successional communities wascomplex. With the development of succession, the number of families, generaand species increased; (â…±) The species richness of every growth form group andlife form group increased at the early stages and decreased at the late, thecompositional proportion became more consisitent over time; (â…²) The dominantspecies of communitys took a change of pioneer heliophytes degenerated andthe mesophytes developed, and the dominant species of shrub layer were treeseedlings in the period before being climax community; (â…³) Species diversityincreased with the succession, During the period from early succession to climaxcommunity, species diversity rised gradually in tree and herb layer and wentdown gradually in shrub layer; (â…´) The Individual density of tree and shrublayer initially rised but eventually dropped, the coverage density of shrub layer and tree layer decreased gradually over time. Pyramid of number based onheight-class became more balanced and reasonable, and diameter-class structurebecame complex too. The tree individuals decreased sharply with the riese ofheight-class and the decrease rate speed up with the development of succession,while, the tree individuals decreased sharply with the riese of diameter-class andthe decrease rate speed down with the development of succession; (â…µ) Thepopulation niche breadth of heliophytes decreased gradually and those ofmesophytes and shade-tolerated species increased gradually over time. Thepopulations with high niche breadth also had high niche overlap, but not allspecies with low niche breadth had low niche overlap; (â…¶) At the beginningstage of succession, the successional mechanism was the 'initial fioristiccomposition hypothesis', and at the later stages, multiple mechanisms stimulatedthe succession together; (â…·) The restoration potentiality analysis showed thatthe neighboring succession stages had much higher restoration potentiality,meanwhile the farther succession stages appeared lower similarity. And thepossibility of developing from other stages to stage 4 is low; (â…¸) Thesuccessional rate, management and conservation of secondary forests and studyof evergreen broad-leaved forest in Damingshan Mountain in the future werediscussed.These studies will enrich the content of vegetation ecology and restorationecology in this area, and this paper is useful and referential to restore andrecreate the vegetation of degraded ecosystems in Damingshan Mountainevergreen broad-leaved forest.