Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Ecological Factors Driving Tree Diversity across Spatial Scales in Temperate Forests, Northeast China

Yue Gu
ORCID logo ,
Junhui Zhang
* ,
Wang Ma
,
Yue Feng
,
Leilei Yang
,
Zhuo Li
,
Yanshuang Guo
,
Guoqiang Shi
,
Shijie Han
* ORCID logo
Version 1 : Received: 16 May 2023 / Approved: 18 May 2023 / Online: 18 May 2023 (10:15:38 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Gu, Y.; Zhang, J.; Ma, W.; Feng, Y.; Yang, L.; Li, Z.; Guo, Y.; Shi, G.; Han, S. Ecological Factors Driving Tree Diversity across Spatial Scales in Temperate Forests, Northeast China. Forests 2023, 14, 1241. Gu, Y.; Zhang, J.; Ma, W.; Feng, Y.; Yang, L.; Li, Z.; Guo, Y.; Shi, G.; Han, S. Ecological Factors Driving Tree Diversity across Spatial Scales in Temperate Forests, Northeast China. Forests 2023, 14, 1241.

Abstract

Species diversity has been shown to be influenced by environmental factors, but the mechanism underlying their relationship remains unclear across spatial scales. Based on field investigation data collected from 3,077 sample plots in temperate forest ecosystems, we compared tree species richness, evenness and dominance at 10 km × 10 km, 30 km × 30 km and 90 km × 90 km spatial scales. Then, we detected the scale dependence of changes in tree species composition on climate, topography and forest structure using variation partitioning and quantified their contribution to tree diversity with gradient boosted models (GBMs) and fitted their relationships. The magnitude of tree richness, evenness and dominance significantly increased with spatial scale. Ecological factors jointly accounted for 24.3%, 26.5% and 38.5% of the variation in tree species composition at the three spatial scales, respectively. Annual mean temperature had a strong impact on tree richness, evenness and dominance and peaked at an intermediate scale. Tree evenness and dominance increased with the variation of temperature but had upper and lower limits. Tree richness obviously increased with annual precipitation on multiple scales and decreased with annual sunshine duration at large spatial scale. Tree richness, evenness and dominance obviously increased with the variation elevation and diameter at breast height at large scales and small scales, respectively. Tree dominance decreased with tree height in a hump at small scale. The dependence of tree diversity on ecological factors increased with spatial scales. Furthermore, different factors exert various controls on tree diversity at different spatial scales, representing a comprehensive mechanism regulating tree diversity.

Keywords

Biodiversity; Tree richness; Shannon index; Simpson index; Ecological mechanism; Climate; Topography; Forest structure

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Forestry

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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