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Scientia Silvae Sinicae ›› 2021, Vol. 57 ›› Issue (4): 1-13.doi: 10.11707/j.1001-7488.20210401

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Linkage between Herbaceous Layer and Overstorey Species along the Pyrogenic Successions in Kanas Taiga Communities

Ke Guo1,Cunde Pan1,*,Gebi Yu2,Guihua Li3,Fan Zhang1,Zhuoying Zou1,Bo Liu1   

  1. 1. College of Forestry and Horticulture, Xinjiang Agricultural University Urumqi 830052
    2. Kanas National Nature Reserves Buerjin 836600
    3. Xinjiang Forestry and Grassland Bureau Urumqi 830000
  • Received:2019-09-18 Online:2021-04-25 Published:2021-05-21
  • Contact: Cunde Pan

Abstract:

Objective: The aim of this study is to test the linkage between herbaceous layer and overstorey species along the pyrogenic successions in Kanas taiga communities and to reveal its the formation mechanism. Method: Community characteristics, i.e., fire time, fire severity, stand factors and environmental factors, of 369 samples of the identifiable unhuman-disturbed pyrogenic succession communities were investigated in Kanas taiga, Xinjiang, China. Then, the canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) and correlation analysis were performed to analyze the linkage between herbaceous layer and overstorey species. Result: The correlation in the first axis score of CCA between herbaceous layer and overstorey reached a significant level after low-severity fire and moderate-severity fires (P=0.017 < 0.05, P=0.043 < 0.05), but it did not reach a significant level after high-severity fire (P=0.093>0.05). After high-severity fire, the correlation in the first axis score of CCA between herbaceous layer and overstorey reached a significant level in early succession stage (P=0.044 < 0.05), whereas reached a highly significant level in the middle and late succession stages (P=0.008 < 0.01, P=0.006 < 0.01). After moderate-severity fire, the correlation of the first axis score of CCA between herbaceous layer and overstorey reached a significant level in early succession stage (P=0.043 < 0.05), whereas reached a highly significant level in the middle and late succession stages (P=0.006 < 0.01, P=0.004 < 0.01). After the interference of low-intensity fire, there was the highly significant correlation in the first axis score of CCA between herbaceous layer and overstorey across all succession stages (P=0.006 < 0.01, P=0.005 < 0.01, P=0.002 < 0.01). The results of CCA showed that the number of same explanatory variables between herbaceous layer and overstorey (i.e., fire time, fire severity, stand factors and environmental factors) with the significant influences on response variables (i.e., species diversity of herbaceous and canopy layers) were 1, 2 and 4 in early, middle and late succession stages after high-severity fire, respectively. However, after moderate- and low-severity fire, the number of same explanatory variables was 3, 4 and 5 in early, middle and late succession stages, respectively. Conclusion: Our results have demonstrated that after fire disturbance there is a linkage between herbaceous layer and overstorey species during community succession in Taijia forest. The reason may be that species diversity patterns in herbaceous layer and canopy layer have consistent response to same environmental gradient across forest succession. The linkage in species diversity between herbaceous layer and overstorey decreases with the intensity of fire severity, whereas increases along forest succession.

Key words: taiga, fire disturbance, overstorey, herbaceous layer, species, linkage

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