Plant Diversity ›› 2015, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (2): 203-208.DOI: 10.7677/ynzwyj201514075

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Herbaceous Plant Species Diversity and Regeneration in Shrub Gaps in Huoshan Mountain of Shanxi Province

 WU  Yu-Jiao, MIAO  Yan-Ming, BI  Run-Cheng   

  1. College of Life Science, Shanxi Normal University, Linfen, Shanxi 041000, China
  • Received:2014-05-12 Online:2015-03-25 Published:2014-07-10
  • Supported by:

    山西省化学优势重点学科建设项目 (912019)

Abstract:

To better understand the effects of shrub gaps on the herbaceous species community in Huoshan Mountain, species importance value and diversity index were employed to analyze the change of the herbaceous plant species composition and diversity across a gradient of gap sizes. The results showed that the proportion of shrub gaps whose area size less than 10m2 were the highest under the natural state, accounting for 512%. The importance value of herbaceous plant was larger in shrub gaps than in nongaps and it was the highest in shrub gaps from 10 to 20m2. The dominant herbaceous species could be classified into three groups: positive response, negative response, and nonsensitive. The species richness, diversity index and evenness index in shrub gaps were higher than those in nongaps, while dominance index in shrub gaps was lower than that in nongaps. In addition, they showed humpshaped curves with increasing gap size, and the maximums appeared in shrub gaps from 10 to 20m2. Therefore, the appropriate size of shrub gap is an important way to maintain the species diversity of herbaceous plant in the forest ecosystems.

Key words: Size of shrub gaps, Herbaceous regeneration, Species diversity, Huoshan Mountain of Shanxi

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