Abstract:

Pinus massoniana forests in Yuelue Mountain play an important role in improving and maintaining urban environment of Changsha city. Based on data collected through a field investigation in Yuelu mountain, the community types of Pinus massoniana forests were classified via TWINSPAN, flexible beta clustering, DCA and NMDS. Four indices of species diversity were used to analyze differences in richness, evenness and heterogeneity between the communities. Results showed that, compared to TWINSPAN and DCA, NMDS coupled with flexible beta clustering was a better quantitative classification method, with which 10 community types of Pinus massoniana in 28 plots were identified, representing four vegetation types, 10 formations. Pinus massoniana forests in Yuelue Mountain formed Pinus Massoniana and four coniferous-broad mixed leaved forests, including Pinus massoniana+Cinnamomum camphora+Liquidambar formosana, Pinus massoniana+Choerospondias axillaries, Pinus massoniana+Camellia euryoides, Pinus massoniana+Cinnamomum camphora and Liquidambar formosana+Pinus massoniana+Symplocos setchuensis. The lowest richness, evenness and heterogeneity, particularly extremely low for the herbs, were measured in the pure Pinus Massoniana forests. In contrast, the coniferous-broad mixed leaved forests, especially in the Pinus massoniana+Castanopsis sclerophylla, showed relatively higher species diversity. The important value of the Pinus Massoniana in stands was negatively correlated with richness, evenness and heterogeneity indices of the trees, evenness and heterogeneity indices of the herbs, but not correlated with diversity of the shrubs.

Key words: Pinus massoniana forest, community structure, Yuelue Mountain, NMDS, flexible beta clustering