Responses of Tree Transpiration and Growth to Seasonal Rainfall Redistribution in a Subtropical Evergreen Broad-Leaved Forest

Precipitation changes such as more frequent drought and altered precipitation seasonality may impose substantial impacts on the structure and functioning of forest ecosystems. A better understanding of tree responses to precipitation changes can provide fundamental information for the conservation and management of forests under future climate regimes. We conducted a 2-year seasonal rainfall redistribution experiment to assess the responses of tree transpiration and growth to manipulated precipitation changes in a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest. Three precipitation treatments were administered including a drier dry season and wetter wet season treatment (DD), an extended dry season and wetter wet season treatment (ED), and an ambient control treatment, with the total amount of annual rainfall being kept the same among the three treatments. Our results showed that the DD and ED treatments reduced daily transpiration of Schima superba by 8–16 and 13–25%, respectively. The ED treatment also reduced the DBH increment of larger S. superba individuals. In contrast, neither treatment showed obvious effects on the transpiration and DBH increment of another dominant species Michelia macclurei. However, the transpiration of both species showed clear inter-annual differences between the 2 years with contrasting annual rainfall (2094 vs 1582 mm). S. superba had a lower transpiration-to-precipitation ratio (T/P) compared to M. macclurei and showed decreased sensitivities to total solar radiation and vapor pressure deficit under the DD and ED treatments. These results indicate the deep-rooted S. superba may be suppressed with a lower ability to obtain water and assimilate carbon compared to the shallow-rooted M. macclurei under the precipitation seasonality changes, which could potentially cause shifts in species dominance within the forest community.     

森林生物多样性与林木害虫的自然防治

森林生物多样性与林木害虫的自然防治谷昭威曲爱军朱承美（山东省林业科学研究所,济南２５００１４）（山东省林业学校,泰安２７１０００）ＦｏｒｅｓｔＢｉｏｄｉｖｅｒｓｉｔｙａｎｄＮａｔｕｒａｌＣｏｎｔｒｏｌｏｆＴｒｅｅＰｅｓｔｓ．ＧｕＺｈａｏｗｅｉ（Ｓｈａ...     

不同光强下几种南亚热带森林乔木的种子萌发和幼苗生长观察

对泡桐,春椿,木蝴蝶,枳Ｊｕ扁斗青冈和罗浮柿等亚热带森林乔木树种在不同强条件下的种子萌发及其幼苗生长进行观察,泡桐和枳Ｊｕ种子在光（１００％）条件下的萌发率最高,香椿和罗浮肺种子在轻阴（６２．２％）条件下的萌发率最高,木蝴蝶和扁斗青冈种子在中阴（３４．４％）条件下萌发率最高,阳性树种泡桐,香椿,木蝴蝶和枳Ｊｕ幼苗生长速度较快,属速生型树种,其幼苗在自然光条件下的总生物量最大;扁斗青冈和罗浮柿幼苗生     

Classification of Tree Species in Overstorey Canopy of Subtropical Forest Using QuickBird Images

This paper proposes a supervised classification scheme to identify 40 tree species (2 coniferous, 38 broadleaf) belonging to 22 families and 36 genera in high spatial resolution QuickBird multispectral images (HMS). Overall kappa coefficient (OKC) and species conditional kappa coefficients (SCKC) were used to evaluate classification performance in training samples and estimate accuracy and uncertainty in test samples. Baseline classification performance using HMS images and vegetation index (VI) images were evaluated with an OKC value of 0.58 and 0.48 respectively, but performance improved significantly (up to 0.99) when used in combination with an HMS spectral-spatial texture image (SpecTex). One of the 40 species had very high conditional kappa coefficient performance (SCKC ≥ 0.95) using 4-band HMS and 5-band VIs images, but, only five species had lower performance (0.68 ≤ SCKC ≤ 0.94) using the SpecTex images. When SpecTex images were combined with a Visible Atmospherically Resistant Index (VARI), there was a significant improvement in performance in the training samples. The same level of improvement could not be replicated in the test samples indicating that a high degree of uncertainty exists in species classification accuracy which may be due to individual tree crown density, leaf greenness (inter-canopy gaps), and noise in the background environment (intra-canopy gaps). These factors increase uncertainty in the spectral texture features and therefore represent potential problems when using pixel-based classification techniques for multi-species classification.     

Relationship Between Aboveground Biomass and Multiple Measures of Biodiversity in Subtropical Forest of Puerto Rico

Anthropogenic activities have accelerated the rate of global loss of biodiversity, making it more important than ever to understand the structure of biodiversity hotspots. One current focus is the relationship between species richness and aboveground biomass (AGB) in a variety of ecosystems. Nonetheless, species diversity, evenness, rarity, or dominance represent other critical attributes of biodiversity and may have associations with AGB that are markedly different than that of species richness. Using data from large trees in four environmentally similar sites in the Luquillo Experimental Forest of Puerto Rico, we determined the shape and strength of relationships between each of five measures of biodiversity (i.e., species richness, Simpson's diversity, Simpson's evenness, rarity, and dominance) and AGB. We quantified these measures of biodiversity using either proportional biomass or proportional abundance as weighting factors. Three of the four sites had a unimodal relationship between species richness and AGB, with only the most mature site evincing a positive, linear relationship. The differences between the mature site and the other sites, as well as the differences between our richness–AGB relationships and those found at other forest sites, highlight the crucial role that prior land use and severe storms have on this forest community. Although the shape and strength of relationships differed greatly among measures of biodiversity and among sites, the strongest relationships within each site were always those involving richness or evenness.     

Species Associations in a Species-Rich Subtropical Forest Were Not Well-Explained by Stochastic Geometry of Biodiversity

The stochastic dilution hypothesis has been proposed to explain species coexistence in species-rich communities. The relative importance of the stochastic dilution effects with respect to other effects such as competition and habitat filtering required to be tested. In this study, using data from a 25-ha species-rich subtropical forest plot with a strong topographic structure at Badagongshan in central China, we analyzed overall species associations and fine-scale species interactions between 2,550 species pairs. The result showed that: (1) the proportion of segregation in overall species association analysis at 2 m neighborhood in this plot followed the prediction of the stochastic dilution hypothesis that segregations should decrease with species richness but that at 10 m neighborhood was higher than the prediction. (2) The proportion of no association type was lower than the expectation of stochastic dilution hypothesis. (3) Fine-scale species interaction analyses using Heterogeneous Poisson processes as null models revealed a high proportion (47%) of significant species effects. However, the assumption of separation of scale of this method was not fully met in this plot with a strong fine-scale topographic structure. We also found that for species within the same families, fine-scale positive species interactions occurred more frequently and negative ones occurred less frequently than expected by chance. These results suggested effects of environmental filtering other than species interaction in this forest. (4) We also found that arbor species showed a much higher proportion of significant fine-scale species interactions (66%) than shrub species (18%). We concluded that the stochastic dilution hypothesis only be partly supported and environmental filtering left discernible spatial signals in the spatial associations between species in this species-rich subtropical forest with a strong topographic structure.     

Contrasting Regeneration Strategies in Climax and Long-Lived Pioneer Tree Species in a Subtropical Forest

1

This study investigated 15 coexisting dominant species in a humid subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest in southwest China, consisting of long-lived pioneers and climax species occurring in natural and disturbed regimes. The authors hypothesized that there would be non-tradeoff scaling relationships between sprouting and seed size among species, with the aim of uncovering the ecological relationship between plant sprouting and seed characteristics in the two functional groups.

2

The sprouting variations of the species were initially examined using pairwise comparisons between natural and disturbed habitats within and across species and were noted to show a continuum in persistence niches across the forest dominants, which may underlie the maintenance of plant diversity. Second, a significantly positive, rather than tradeoff, relationship between sprout number and seed size across species within each of the two functional groups was observed, and an obvious elevational shift with a common slope among the two groups in their natural habitat was examined. The results indicate the following: 1) the relationship of seed size vs. sprouts in the natural habitat is more likely to be bet-hedging among species within a guild in a forest; 2) climax species tend to choose seeding rather than sprouting regeneration, and vice versa for the long-lived pioneers; and 3) the negative correlation between sprouting and seed dispersal under disturbed conditions may imply a tradeoff between dispersal and persistence in situ during the process of plant regeneration.

3

These findings may be of potential significance for urban greening using native species.     

Determinants of Tree Assemblage Composition at the Mesoscale within a Subtropical Eucalypt Forest

A variety of environmental processes, including topography, edaphic and disturbance factors can influence vegetation composition. The relative influence of these patterns has been known to vary with scale, however, few studies have focused on environmental drivers of composition at the mesoscale. This study examined the relative importance of topography, catchment flow and soil in influencing tree assemblages in Karawatha Forest Park; a South-East Queensland subtropical eucalypt forest embedded in an urban matrix that is part of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network South-East Queensland Peri-urban SuperSite. Thirty-three LTER plots were surveyed at the mesoscale (909 ha), where all woody stems ≥1.3 m high rooted within plots were sampled. Vegetation was divided into three cohorts: small (≥1–10 cm DBH), intermediate (≥10–30 cm DBH), and large (≥30 cm DBH). Plot slope, aspect, elevation, catchment area and location and soil chemistry and structure were also measured. Ordinations and smooth surface modelling were used to determine drivers of vegetation assemblage in each cohort. Vegetation composition was highly variable among plots at the mesoscale (plots systematically placed at 500 m intervals). Elevation was strongly related to woody vegetation composition across all cohorts (R²: 0.69–0.75). Other topographic variables that explained a substantial amount of variation in composition were catchment area (R²: 0.43–0.45) and slope (R²: 0.23–0.61). Soil chemistry (R²: 0.09–0.75) was also associated with woody vegetation composition. While species composition differed substantially between cohorts, the environmental variables explaining composition did not. These results demonstrate the overriding importance of elevation and other topographic features in discriminating tree assemblage patterns irrespective of tree size. The importance of soil characteristics to tree assemblages was also influenced by topography, where ridge top sites were typically drier and had lower soil nutrient levels than riparian areas.     

The Potential of Tree Rings for the Study of Forest Succession in Southern Mexico

Studies of tropical secondary forest succession face strong limitations due to the slow pace of succession and the time-consuming task of monitoring processes. The occurrence of tree rings in secondary forest trees may help expand our knowledge on succession in these systems and may be useful for fallow dating in chronosequence studies. We examine here the potential of tree rings to study forest succession by sampling 70 species along chronosequences of dry and wet forests in southern Mexico. Based on wood anatomical features, we estimated that about 37 percent of the species presented distinct growth rings useful for ring studies. Overall, maximum number of rings matched well the interview-based fallow ages but, at some sites, trees had consistently higher numbers of rings, probably due to errors in fallow ages derived from interviews. Best fallow age estimations were obtained by examining rings in both pioneer and nonpioneer species. Reconstruction of species' establishment dates revealed that pioneer and nonpioneer species establish early during succession, and that species of both groups continue to recruit after many years. Our study clearly shows that tree ring analysis is a promising tool for studies on secondary forest succession in the tropics.     

粤东亚热带森林群落树种组成对苔藓植物分布的影响

为探究森林群落树种组成对苔藓植物分布的影响,利用多元统计方法研究粤东亚热带地区苔藓植物的组成和分布对林分类型的响应。根据森林乔木层的树种组成划分为翻白叶树(Pterospermum heterophyllum)、木荷(Schima superba)+米锥(Castanopsis carlesii)和米锥3种森林类型。结果表明,3种森林类型中苔类(liverworts)和藓类(mosses)植物群落组成特征总体上存在显著差异;双齿裂萼苔(Chiloscyphus latifolius)和细指苔(Kurzia gonyotricha)在3种类型林分中的重要值变化指示了苔类植物群落的差异。3种类型林分中,均以东亚拟鳞叶藓(Pseudotaxiphyllum pohliaecarpum)为优势种。不同林分中藓类植物种类组成主要表现为亚优种分布的不同。这表明森林群落树种组成作为重要的生物因子,对林内苔藓植物的分布和种类组成有重要影响。     

Variations and Trade‐offs in Functional Traits of Tree Seedlings during Secondary Succession in a Tropical Lowland Rain Forest

The seedling stage is generally the most important bottleneck for the successful regeneration of trees in forests. The traits of seedlings, particularly biomass allocation and root traits, are more easily quantified than the traits of adults. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that seedling traits vary and trade‐off tracking the changing environment during secondary succession. We measured the major morphological traits of 27 dominant species and the major environmental factors in a chronosequence (30‐yr‐old fallow, 60‐yr‐old fallow, and old growth forest) after shifting cultivation in a tropical lowland rain forest on Hainan Island, China. The 30‐yr‐old fallow had higher light and nutrient availability, and the older forests had higher soil water content. Redundancy analysis based on species abundance and environmental factors revealed groups of seedlings that dominate in different stages of succession. Seedlings in different stages of succession had different strategies of biomass allocation for harvesting resources that varied in availability. Species characteristic of younger forest had higher allocation to roots and higher specific leaf area, while species characteristic of older forest had higher allocation to leaves. Our study suggests that the variations and trade‐offs in the major functional traits of tree seedlings among successional classes may reflect changes in environmental conditions during succession.     

Influence of Tree Species Composition and Community Structure on Carbon Density in a Subtropical Forest

We assessed the impact of species composition and stand structure on the spatial variation of forest carbon density using data collected from a 4-ha plot in a subtropical forest in southern China. We found that 1) forest biomass carbon density significantly differed among communities, reflecting a significant effect of community structure and species composition on carbon accumulation; 2) soil organic carbon density increased whereas stand biomass carbon density decreased across communities, indicating that different mechanisms might account for the accumulation of stand biomass carbon and soil organic carbon in the subtropical forest; and 3) a small number of tree individuals of the medium- and large-diameter class contributed predominantly to biomass carbon accumulation in the community, whereas a large number of seedlings and saplings were responsible for a small proportion of the total forest carbon stock. These findings demonstrate that both biomass carbon and soil carbon density in the subtropical forest are sensitive to species composition and community structure, and that heterogeneity in species composition and stand structure should be taken into account to ensure accurate forest carbon accounting.     

Seed Germination and Seedling Development of Several Tree Species in the Lower Subtropical Evergreen Broad-Leaf Forest

Studies on seed germination and seedling development of Ormosia glaberrima Wu, Ouercus hui Chun, Diospyros morrisiana Hance, Oroxylum indicum (L.) Vent., Toona sinensis (A. Tuss. ) Roem. and Paulownia fortunei (Seem.) Hemsl. revealed that had rapid germination but Ormosia glaberrirna. Germination began 2--3 days and ceased 2—4 weeks after the initiation of the experiment. Fast-growing sun trees Oroxylum indicurn, T. sinensis, and P. fortunei germinated faster than did the species in the forest. Germination of Oroxylum glaberrirna was delayed because of its hard seed coat, but became rapid when its coat was slit open. Species in the forest and Oroxylurn indicurn and T. sinensis could germinate in both dark and light, tiny seeds of P. fortunei germinated poorly in dark. Water absorption of seeds presented three phases which varied among the species. Morphology of the seedlings might be related to shading-tolerance and growth speed of species.     

Topography and Tree Species Improve Estimates of Spatial Variation in Soil Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in a Subtropical Forest

Ecosystems - Subtropical and tropical forests account for over 50% of soil CO2 production, 47% of N2O fluxes of natural ecosystems, and act as both significant sources and sinks of atmospheric CH4....     

Species-Specific Effects on Throughfall Kinetic Energy in Subtropical Forest Plantations Are Related to Leaf Traits and Tree Architecture

Soil erosion is a key threat to many ecosystems, especially in subtropical China where high erosion rates occur. While the mechanisms that induce soil erosion on agricultural land are well understood, soil erosion processes in forests have rarely been studied. Throughfall kinetic energy (TKE) is influenced in manifold ways and often determined by the tree’s leaf and architectural traits. We investigated the role of species identity in mono-specific stands on TKE by asking to what extent TKE is species-specific and which leaf and architectural traits account for variation in TKE. We measured TKE of 11 different tree species planted in monocultures in a biodiversity-ecosystem-functioning experiment in subtropical China, using sand-filled splash cups during five natural rainfall events in summer 2013. In addition, 14 leaf and tree architectural traits were measured and linked to TKE. Our results showed that TKE was highly species-specific. Highest TKE was found below Choerospondias axillaris and Sapindus saponaria, while Schima superba showed lowest TKE. These species-specific effects were mediated by leaf habit, leaf area (LA), leaf pinnation, leaf margin, stem diameter at ground level (GD), crown base height (CBH), tree height, number of branches and leaf area index (LAI) as biotic factors and throughfall as abiotic factor. Among these, leaf habit, tree height and LA showed the highest effect sizes on TKE and can be considered as major drivers of TKE. TKE was positively influenced by LA, GD, CBH, tree height, LAI, and throughfall amount while it was negatively influenced by the number of branches. TKE was lower in evergreen, simple leaved and dentate leaved than in deciduous, pinnated or entire leaved species. Our results clearly showed that soil erosion in forest plantations can be mitigated by the appropriate choice of tree species.     

Net Assimilation Rate Determines the Growth Rates of 14 Species of Subtropical Forest Trees

Growth rates are of fundamental importance for plants, as individual size affects myriad ecological processes. We determined the factors that generate variation in RGR among 14 species of trees and shrubs that are abundant in subtropical Chinese forests. We grew seedlings for two years at four light levels in a shade-house experiment. We monitored the growth of every juvenile plant every two weeks. After one and two years, we destructively harvested individuals and measured their functional traits and gas-exchange rates. After calculating individual biomass trajectories, we estimated relative growth rates using nonlinear growth functions. We decomposed the variance in log(RGR) to evaluate the relationships of RGR with its components: specific leaf area (SLA), net assimilation rate (NAR) and leaf mass ratio (LMR). We found that variation in NAR was the primary determinant of variation in RGR at all light levels, whereas SLA and LMR made smaller contributions. Furthermore, NAR was strongly and positively associated with area-based photosynthetic rate and leaf nitrogen content. Photosynthetic rate and leaf nitrogen concentration can, therefore, be good predictors of growth in woody species.     

Ethylene Promotes Elongation Growth and Auxin Promotes Radial Growth in Ranunculus sceleratus Petioles

Submergence induces elongation in the petioles of Ranunculus sceleratus L., after a rise in endogenous ethylene levels in the tissue. Petioles of isolated leaves also elongate 100% in 24 hours when treated with ethylene gas, without a change in the radius. Application of silver thiosulfate, aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG), abscisic acid (ABA), or methyl jasmonate inhibits this elongation response. Gibberellic acid treatment promotes ethylene-induced elongation, without an effect on the radius. Indoelastic acid (IAA) induces radial growth in the petioles, irrespective of the presence or absence of added ethylene. High concentrations of IAA will also induce elongation growth, but this is largely due to auxin-induced ethylene synthesis; treatment with silver thiosulfate, AVG, ABA, or methyl jasmonate inhibit this auxin-promoted elongation growth. However, the radial growth induced by IAA is not affected by gibberellic acid, and not specifically inhibited by ABA, methyl jasmonate, silver thiosulfate, or AVG. These results support the idea that petiole cell elongation during “accommodation growth” can be separated from radial expansion. The radial expansion may well be regulated by IAA. However, effects of high levels of IAA are probably anomalous, since they do not mimic normal developmental patterns.