Research On Leaf Functional Diversity Of Forest Communities In Rainy Area Of South-west China

In recent years, functional diversity has became a crucial and controversial issue in biodiversity research. It’s a very important component of biodiversity, as well as an effective means to solve many current and complex problems within the field of biodiversity. Due to leaf functional traits easy to quantization and measure, they are always selected for study on functional diversity; it’s an important content of functional diversity research. Mountain broad-leaved forest is one of the main forest types in rainy area of south-west China, It is rich in diversity, but the study on the diversity of its functions is rare. In this study, Shangli, a township in Yaan city, was chosen as the study area. And I select leaf area(LA), leaf dry weight(LDW), specific leaf area(SLA), leaf dry mass content(LDMC) and leaf chlorophyll concentration(LCC) five leaf functional traits, and selects functional attribute diversity index (FAD), functional evenness index (FEve), quadratic entropy index (FDQ) three functional diversity index, and shannon index(H), species evenness index(E), simpson Index(D) three species diversity index to research broad leaved forest leaf functional diversity of five mountain forest communities in rainy area of south-west China. The main conclusions are as follows:1. Between the ten tree species of five communities, leaf area (p=0.001), leaf dry weight (p=0.002), specific leaf area (p=0.003), leaf dry mass content (p=0.001), leaf chlorophyll concentration (p=0.005) were significant difference at 0.01 level. Different species leaf functional traits are decided by the growth characteristics of its own, it’s a strategy to adapt to the environment.2. Between five communities, leaf area, leaf dry weight, leaf dry mass content have a close relationship with plant individual character.Comparison of leaf functional community characteristics among different levels of plants, trees, shrubs and herbs showed a different but regular change with different plant life forms, which is related to the characteristics and growth environment.3. Between five leaf functional traits, Leaf area showed significant positive correlation with leaf dry weight and specific leaf area at the level of 0.01, and showed a significant negative correlation with leaf dry matter content, chlorophyll content at the level of 0.01. Specific leaf area showed a significant negative correlation with leaf dry weight at the level of 0.05, and showed a significant negative correlation with leaf dry matter content, chlorophyll content at the level of 0.01. The leaf functional traits associate with each other, and work together to promote plant growth.4. Between five communities, significant differences were not showed in the species diversity of five communities, while the differences in functional diversity is relatively large. Statistically, the species diversity of statistics is at the species level, but functional diversity also preserves important information of trait level; functional diversity can reflect more than species diversity in the differences between the communities.