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Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1890/09-2172.1
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Title (Primary) Community assembly during secondary forest succession in a Chinese subtropical forest
Author Bruelheide, H.; Böhnke, M.; Both, S.; Fang, T.; Assmann, T.; Baruffol, M.; Beuhus, J.; Buscot, F.; Chen, X.-Y.; Ding, B.-Y.; Durka, W. ORCID logo ; Erfmeier, A.; Fischer, M.; Geißler, C.; Guo, D.; Guo, L.-D.; Härdtle, W.; He, J.-S.; Hector, A.; Kröber, W.; Kühn, P.; Lang, A.; Nadrowski, K.; Pei, K.; Scherer-Lorenzen, M.; Shi, X.; Scholten, T.; Schuldt, A.; Trogisch, S.; von Oheimb, G.; Welk, E.; Wirth, C.; Wu, Y.-T.; Yang, X.; Zeng, X.; Zhang, S.; Zhou, H.; Ma, K.; Schmid, B.
Source Titel Ecological Monographs
Year 2011
Department BZF; BOOEK
Volume 81
Issue 1
Page From 25
Page To 41
Language englisch
Data and Software links https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3309591
Keywords BEF-China, chronosequence, DCA, Gutianshan National Nature Reserve, immigration, negative density dependence, NMDS, permanent forest dynamic plots, random assembly, secondary forest succession, Zhejiang Province
Abstract Subtropical broad-leaved forests in south-eastern China support a high diversity of woody plants. Using a comparative study design with 30 x 30 m plots (n = 27) from five successional stages (< 20, < 40, < 60, < 80 and 80 yrs) 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 {less than or equal to} 1 m in height) in each central 10 x 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 non-metric 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 amongst 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.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=10726
Bruelheide, H., Böhnke, M., Both, S., Fang, T., Assmann, T., Baruffol, M., Beuhus, J., Buscot, F., Chen, X.-Y., Ding, B.-Y., Durka, W., Erfmeier, A., Fischer, M., Geißler, C., Guo, D., Guo, L.-D., Härdtle, W., He, J.-S., Hector, A., Kröber, W., Kühn, P., Lang, A., Nadrowski, K., Pei, K., Scherer-Lorenzen, M., Shi, X., Scholten, T., Schuldt, A., Trogisch, S., von Oheimb, G., Welk, E., Wirth, C., Wu, Y.-T., Yang, X., Zeng, X., Zhang, S., Zhou, H., Ma, K., Schmid, B. (2011):
Community assembly during secondary forest succession in a Chinese subtropical forest
Ecol. Monogr. 81 (1), 25 - 41 10.1890/09-2172.1