Recovery of understory vegetation biomass and biodiversity in burned larch boreal forests in Northeastern China |
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| Authors: | Jun Ma Rencang Bu Miao Liu Yu Chang Fenglin Han Qin Qin |
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| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110164, People's Republic of China;2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, People's Republic of China |
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| Abstract: | Recovery of biomass and biodiversity of forest understory vegetation after fire disturbance has been widely studied; however, how this relationship changes and what are the determinants at different post-fire stages in larch boreal forests are still unclear. We investigated a chronosequence of 81 understory plots in larch boreal forests that were disturbed by fires in 1987 (S5), 1992 (S4), 1996 (S3), 2002 (S2), or 2007 (S1). Analysis of variance was conducted to test the differences of biodiversity and biomass among various post-fire stages. Different regression models were used to fit the relationship between biomass and biodiversity, while factors influencing this relationship were identified by boosted regression tree analysis. Results showed that total understory biomass increased from 2.51?t?ha?1 in S1 to 8.47?t?ha?1 in S3 and declined to 5?t?ha?1 in S5. Similar dynamics were also found between species richness and species diversity. Positive linear correlations linked biomass and biodiversity throughout most of the post-fire periods. Slope and stand density were the two most important factors influencing the secondary succession of understory vegetation after fire. Geographical factors and overstory competition determine the orientation of vegetation recovery, and the impacts of climate on vegetation are muted after fire disturbances. |
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| Keywords: | Secondary succession understory vegetation post-fire stages biomass and diversity larch boreal forests great Xing'an Mountains |
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