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Community assembly during secondary forest succession in a Chinese subtropical forest
Author(s) -
Bruelheide Helge,
Böhnke Martin,
Both Sabine,
Fang Teng,
Assmann Thorsten,
Baruffol Martin,
Bauhus Jürgen,
Buscot François,
Chen Xiao-Yong,
Ding Bing-Yang,
Durka Walter,
Erfmeier Alexandra,
Fischer Markus,
Geißler Christian,
Guo Dali,
Guo Liang-Dong,
Härdtle Werner,
He Jin-Sheng,
Hector Andy,
Kröber Wenzel,
Kühn Peter,
Lang Anne C.,
Nadrowski Karin,
Pei Kequan,
Scherer-Lorenzen Michael,
Shi Xuezheng,
Scholten Thomas,
Schuldt Andreas,
Trogisch Stefan,
von Oheimb Goddert,
Welk Erik,
Wirth Christian,
Wu Yu-Ting,
Yang Xuefei,
Zeng Xueqin,
Zhang Shouren,
Zhou Hongzhang,
Ma Keping,
Schmid Bernhard
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
ecological monographs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.254
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1557-7015
pISSN - 0012-9615
DOI - 10.1890/09-2172.1
Subject(s) - species richness , ecological succession , ecology , secondary succession , abiotic component , tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests , biology , pioneer species , plant community , woody plant , species diversity , community structure , subtropics
Subtropical broad‐leaved forests in southeastern China support a high diversity of woody plants. Using a comparative study design with 30 × 30 m plots ( n = 27) from five successional stages (<20, <40, <60, <80, and ≥80 yr), we investigated how the gradient in species composition reflects underlying processes of community assembly. In particular, we tested whether species richness of adult trees and shrubs decreased or increased and assessed to which degree this pattern was caused by negative density dependence or continuous immigration over time. Furthermore, we tested whether rare species were increasingly enriched and the species composition of adult trees and shrubs became more similar to species composition of seedlings during the course of succession. We counted the individuals of all adult species and shrubs >1 m in height in each plot and counted all woody recruits (bank of all seedlings ≤1 m in height) in each central 10 × 10 m quadrant of each plot. In addition, we measured a number of environmental variables (elevation, slope, aspect, soil moisture, pH, C, N, and C/N ratio) and biotic structural variables (height and cover of layers). Adult species richness varied from 25 to 69 species per plot, and in total 148 woody species from 46 families were recorded. There was a clear successional gradient in species composition as revealed by nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), but only a poor differentiation of different successional stages with respect to particular species. Adult richness per 100 individuals (rarefaction method) increased with successional stage. None of the measured abiotic variables were significantly correlated with adult species richness. We found no evidence that rare species were responsible for the increasing adult species richness, as richness of rare species among both adults and recruits was independent of the successional stage. Furthermore, the similarity between established adults and recruits did not increase with successional stage. There was a constant number of recruit species and also of exclusive recruit species, i.e., those that had not been present as adult individuals, across all successional stages, suggesting a continuous random immigration over time.