Abstract:

A one-hm 2 Chinese Pine(Pinus tabulaeformis)plantation was investigated to understand community vertical structure and two 100 m-long transects within the plantation were examined to learn community horizontal structure, in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River, Sichuan Province,southwestern China. The pine coverage was found to be inversely related to shrub coverage, understory coverage(sum coverage of shrub and herb layers)and understory species richness, similar to the relationship between shrub layer and herbaceous coverage. No significant relationship was found between species richness and coverage within both shrub and herbaceous layer. Shrub layer coverage declined, but herbaceous layer coverage increased with increasing the pine patch size. Species richness peaked at the pine patch diameter of 12～15 m. Within the forest gaps, species richness and herb coverage were larger near the edge of forest gaps than that of gap centers, while shrub coverage was larger in the gap centers. Considering that different plant species are supported by patches with different size, we suggest that the pine forest should be managed to a mosaic community that consists of many forest gaps and pine patches with different size.

Key words: Chinese Pine, Species diversity, Coverage, Vertical structure, Horizontal structure