The dynamic environments in riparian zones support a variety of life-history strategies, which constitute a fundamental mechanism for development and maintenance of biodiversity in riparian forest ecosystems. To demon...The dynamic environments in riparian zones support a variety of life-history strategies, which constitute a fundamental mechanism for development and maintenance of biodiversity in riparian forest ecosystems. To demonstrate the effect of life-history strategies on biodiversity, we investigated community-level diversity and its relationship to environmental variability in the riparian Populus euphratica forests of the Ejina Oasis. Communities were divided into 14 associations on the basis of their species impor- tance values. The Simpson＇s index, Shannon-Wiener index, Pielou＇s evenness index and the regional Whittaker＇s index were applied to calculate community diversity. An ordination of the sample plots was carried out by correspondence analysis （CA）. Biodiversity was relatively low across the entire study area, but there was high community diversity （flw = 8.09） due to the spatial heterogeneity of habitats in different plots. In addition, we investigated the relationship between biodiversity and several environmental factors, such as water availability, community components and soil conditions. We conclude that the heterogeneity of soil and water availability drives community diversity patterns in riparian zones and that community-level diversity favors the maintenance of species diversity in the P euphratica forests in the Ejina Oasis.展开更多
Seed dispersal is a fundamental process affecting destinies of seeds and seedlings, as well as regeneration dynamics and distribution patterns of communities. Recently however, declining Populus euphratica forests hav...Seed dispersal is a fundamental process affecting destinies of seeds and seedlings, as well as regeneration dynamics and distribution patterns of communities. Recently however, declining Populus euphratica forests have failed to regenerate by seeding, while the spatial pattern and utility of their seed rains are unclear. In this study, we designed a model to simulate seed rains based on field investigations by fitting our observations to a normal distribution and testing the model with data from three years, with ac- ceptable results. We examined the simulated results of dispersed seeds patterns on the classification of three factors, i.e., density of Sophora alopecuroides, surface soil moisture and surface soil salinity. The results of seed rain simulation show that over 70% of seeds were dispersed and confined to each of the three plots where their mother trees located. The proportion of 3：7 seeds dispersed inside and outside each plots remained largely unaltered. The differences in the amounts of dispersed seed among the different levels of each of the factors were not significant, although the distributing pattern of P. euphratica in each plot varied. Therefore, in P. eu- phratica communities, the amount of seed does not become a constraint in subsequent germination, although the surface environment does. We conclude that successful P. euphratica seed regeneration relies on less than 30% of seeds dispersed over longer distance to colonize favorable growth habitats.展开更多
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30570332)the 11th Five-Year Plan of the National Scientific and Technological Support Projects (2008BADB0B05)
文摘The dynamic environments in riparian zones support a variety of life-history strategies, which constitute a fundamental mechanism for development and maintenance of biodiversity in riparian forest ecosystems. To demonstrate the effect of life-history strategies on biodiversity, we investigated community-level diversity and its relationship to environmental variability in the riparian Populus euphratica forests of the Ejina Oasis. Communities were divided into 14 associations on the basis of their species impor- tance values. The Simpson＇s index, Shannon-Wiener index, Pielou＇s evenness index and the regional Whittaker＇s index were applied to calculate community diversity. An ordination of the sample plots was carried out by correspondence analysis （CA）. Biodiversity was relatively low across the entire study area, but there was high community diversity （flw = 8.09） due to the spatial heterogeneity of habitats in different plots. In addition, we investigated the relationship between biodiversity and several environmental factors, such as water availability, community components and soil conditions. We conclude that the heterogeneity of soil and water availability drives community diversity patterns in riparian zones and that community-level diversity favors the maintenance of species diversity in the P euphratica forests in the Ejina Oasis.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.30570332,31070553)the 11th Five-Year Plan of the National Scientific and Technological Support Projects(2008BADB0B05)
文摘Seed dispersal is a fundamental process affecting destinies of seeds and seedlings, as well as regeneration dynamics and distribution patterns of communities. Recently however, declining Populus euphratica forests have failed to regenerate by seeding, while the spatial pattern and utility of their seed rains are unclear. In this study, we designed a model to simulate seed rains based on field investigations by fitting our observations to a normal distribution and testing the model with data from three years, with ac- ceptable results. We examined the simulated results of dispersed seeds patterns on the classification of three factors, i.e., density of Sophora alopecuroides, surface soil moisture and surface soil salinity. The results of seed rain simulation show that over 70% of seeds were dispersed and confined to each of the three plots where their mother trees located. The proportion of 3：7 seeds dispersed inside and outside each plots remained largely unaltered. The differences in the amounts of dispersed seed among the different levels of each of the factors were not significant, although the distributing pattern of P. euphratica in each plot varied. Therefore, in P. eu- phratica communities, the amount of seed does not become a constraint in subsequent germination, although the surface environment does. We conclude that successful P. euphratica seed regeneration relies on less than 30% of seeds dispersed over longer distance to colonize favorable growth habitats.
