1 Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China; 2 Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3 Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural and Reclamation Sciences, Shihezi 832000, China
Spatial heterogeneity of plant species on the windward slope of active sand dunes in a semi-arid region of China
1 Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China; 2 Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3 Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural and Reclamation Sciences, Shihezi 832000, China
摘要 Species richness and abundance are two important species diversity variables that have attracted par-ticular attention because of their significance in determining present and future species composition conditions. This paper aims to explain the qualitative and quantitative relationships between species diversity pattern and grain size (i.e. size of the sampling unit), and species diversity pattern and sampling area, and to analyze species diversity variability on active sand dunes in the Horqin Sandy Land, northeastern Inner Mongolia, China. A 50 m×50 m sampling plot was selected on the windward slope, where the dominant species was annual herb Agriophyllum squarrosum. Species composition and abundance at five grain sizes were recorded, and the species-area curves were produced for thirteen grain sizes. The range of values for species abundance tended to increase with in-creasing grain size in the study area, whereas, generally, species richness did not follow this rule because of poor species richness on the windward slope of active sand dunes. However, the homogeneity of species richness in-creased significantly. With the increase in sampling area, species abundance increased linearly, but richness in-creased logarithmically. Furthermore, variograms showed that species diversity on the windward slope of active sand dunes was weakly anisotropic and the distribution pattern was random, according to the Moran Coefficient. The results also showed that species richness was low, with a random distribution pattern. This conflicts with the results of previous studies that showed spatial aggregation in lower richness in a sampling area within a community and inferred that the physical processes play a more important role in species diversity than distribution pattern on active sand dunes. Further research into different diversity patterns and mechanisms between active sand dunes and interdune lowlands should be conducted to better understand biodiversity conservation in sand dune fields.
Abstract: Species richness and abundance are two important species diversity variables that have attracted par-ticular attention because of their significance in determining present and future species composition conditions. This paper aims to explain the qualitative and quantitative relationships between species diversity pattern and grain size (i.e. size of the sampling unit), and species diversity pattern and sampling area, and to analyze species diversity variability on active sand dunes in the Horqin Sandy Land, northeastern Inner Mongolia, China. A 50 m×50 m sampling plot was selected on the windward slope, where the dominant species was annual herb Agriophyllum squarrosum. Species composition and abundance at five grain sizes were recorded, and the species-area curves were produced for thirteen grain sizes. The range of values for species abundance tended to increase with in-creasing grain size in the study area, whereas, generally, species richness did not follow this rule because of poor species richness on the windward slope of active sand dunes. However, the homogeneity of species richness in-creased significantly. With the increase in sampling area, species abundance increased linearly, but richness in-creased logarithmically. Furthermore, variograms showed that species diversity on the windward slope of active sand dunes was weakly anisotropic and the distribution pattern was random, according to the Moran Coefficient. The results also showed that species richness was low, with a random distribution pattern. This conflicts with the results of previous studies that showed spatial aggregation in lower richness in a sampling area within a community and inferred that the physical processes play a more important role in species diversity than distribution pattern on active sand dunes. Further research into different diversity patterns and mechanisms between active sand dunes and interdune lowlands should be conducted to better understand biodiversity conservation in sand dune fields.
The National Natural Science Foun-dation of China (41071187) and the State Forestry Administra-tion Industry Special Project (201004023).
通讯作者:
DeMing JIANG
E-mail: jiangdeming@iae.ac.cn
引用本文:
DeMing JIANG, ChunPing MIAO, XueHua LI, XiaoLan LI, ALAMUSA, QuanLai ZHOU. Spatial heterogeneity of plant species on the windward slope of active sand dunes in a semi-arid region of China[J]. 干旱区科学, 2013, 5(1): 80-88.
DeMing JIANG, ChunPing MIAO, XueHua LI, XiaoLan LI, ALAMUSA, QuanLai ZHOU. Spatial heterogeneity of plant species on the windward slope of active sand dunes in a semi-arid region of China. Journal of Arid Land, 2013, 5(1): 80-88.
Caley M J, Schluter D. 1997. The relationship between local and regional diversity. Ecology, 78: 70–80.Chen Y F, Yu F H, Dong M. 2002. Scale-dependent spatial heterogeneity of vegetation in Mu Us sandy land, a semi-arid area of China. Plant Ecology, 162: 135–142.Connell J H. 1978. Diversity in tropical rain forests and coral reefs. Science, 199: 1302–1310.Connor E F, McCoy E D. 1979. The statistics and biology of the species-area relationship. The American Naturalist, 113: 791–833.Crawley M J. 1997. The structure of plant communities. In: Crawley M J. Plant Ecology. 2nd ed. London: Oxford, 475–531.Crawley M J, Harral J E. 2001. Scale dependence in plant biodiversity. Science, 291: 864–868.Crist T O, Veech J A, Gering J C, et al. 2003. Partitioning species diversity across landscapes and regions: a hierarchical analysis of α, β and γ diversity. The American Naturalist, 162: 734–743.Dungan J L, Perry J N, Dale M R T, et al. 2002. A balance view of scale in spatial statistical analysis. Ecography, 25: 626–640.Engen S. 1977. Exponential and logarithmic species-area curves. The American Naturalist, 111: 591–594.Foster B L, Tilman D. 2000. Dynamic and static views of succession: testing the descriptive power of the chronosequence approach. Plant Ecology, 146: 1–10.Garson J, Aggarwal A, Sarkar S. 2002. Birds as surrogates for biodiversity: an analysis of a data set from southern Québec. Journal of Biosciences, 27: 347–360.He F L, Legendre P, Bellehumeur C, et al. 1994. Diversity pattern and spatial scale: a study of a tropical rain forest of Malaysia. Environmental and Ecological Statistics, 1: 265–286.He F L, Legendre P. 1996. On species-area relations. The American Naturalist, 148: 719–737.He F L, Legendre P. 2002. Species diversity patterns derived from species-area models. Ecology, 83: 1185–1198.Hess G R, Bartel R A, Leidner A K, et al. 2006. Effectiveness of biodiversity indicators varies with extent, grain, and region. Biological Conservation, 132: 448–457.Hulme P F. 2008. Contrasting alien and native plant species-area relationships: the importance of spatial grain and extent. Global Ecol-ogy and Biogeography, 17: 641–647.Huston M. 1979. A general hypothesis of species diversity. The American Naturalist, 113: 81–101.Jackson R B, Caldwell M M. 1993. Geostatistical patterns of soil heterogeneity around individual perennial plants. Journal of Ecology, 81: 683–692. Kent M, Owen N W, Dale M P. 2005. Photosynthetic responses of plant communities to sand burial on the MacHair dune systems of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Annals of Botany, 95: 869–877.Komac B, Alados C L, Bueno C G, et al. 2011. Spatial patterns of species distributions in grazed subalpine grasslands. Plant Ecology, 212: 519–529.Leigh Jr E G. 1965. On the relation between the productivity, biomass, diversity and stability of a community. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 53: 777–783.Liu Z M, Yan Q L, Baskin C C, et al. 2006. Burial of canopy-stored seeds in the annual psammophyte Agriophyllum squarrosum Moq. (Chenopodiaceae) and its ecological significance. Plant and Soil, 288: 71–80.Liu Z M, Ma J L. 2008. Research progress on plant diversity conservation in sand dune areas. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology, 19(1): 183–190. Ma J L, Liu Z M. 2008. Spatiotemporal pattern of seed bank in the annual Psammophyte Agriophyllum squarrosum Moq. (Chenopodiaceae) on the active sand dunes of northeastern Inner Mongolia, China. Plant and Soil, 311: 97–107.MacArthur R H, Wilson E O. 1963. An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography. Evolution, 17: 373–387.MacArthur R H. 1995. Fluctuations of animal populations, and a measure of community stability. Ecology, 36: 533–536.McGuinness K A. 1984. Equations and explanations in the study of species-area curves. Biological Review, 59: 423–440.Meentemeyer V, Box E O. 1987. Scale effects in landscape studies. In: Turner M G. Landscape Heterogeneity and Disturbance. New York: Springer-Verlag, 15–36.Meisel J E, Turner M G. 1998. Scale detection in real and artificial land-scapes using semivariance analysis. Landscape Ecology, 13: 347–362.Ney-Nifle M, Mangel M. 1999. Species-area curves based on geographical range and occupancy. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 196: 327–342.Olsson P A, Wilhelmsson P. 2000. The growth of external AM fungal mycelium in sand dunes and in experimental systems. Plant and Soil, 226: 161–169.Preston F W. 1960. Time and space and the variation of species. Ecology, 41: 611–627. Preston F W. 1962a. The canonical distribution of commonness and rarity: Part I. Ecology, 43: 185–215.Preston F W. 1962b. The canonical distribution of commonness and rarity: Part II. Ecology, 43: 410–432.Rahbek C. 2005. The role of spatial scale and the perception of large-scale species richness patterns. Ecology Letters, 8: 224–239.Rosenzweig M L. 1995. Species Diversity in Space and Time. England: Cambridge University Press.Rossi R E, Mulla D J, Journel A G, et al. 1992. Geostatistical tools for modeling and interpreting ecological spatial dependence. Ecological Monographs, 62: 277–314.Srivastava D S. 1999. Using local-regional richness plots to test for species saturation: pitfalls and potentials. Journal of Animal Ecology, 68: 1–16.Triantis K A, Guilhaumon F, Whittaker R J. 2012. The island species-area relationship: biology and statistics. Journal of Biogeogra-phy, 39: 215–231.Tsoar H. 2005. Sand dunes mobility and stability in relation to climate. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 357: 50–56.Turner M G, O’Neill R V, Gardner R H, et al. 1989. Effects of changing spatial scale on the analysis of landscape pattern. Landscape Ecology, 3: 153–162.Vardavakis E. 1992. Mycorrhizal endogonaceae and their seasonal variations in a Greek sand dune. Pedobiologia, 36: 373–382.Wall J W, Skene K R, Neilson R. 2002. Nematode community and trophic structure along a sand dune succession. Biology and Fertility of Soils, 35: 293–301.Wang X G, Hao Z Q, Ye J, et al. 2008. Spatial variation of species diversity across scales in an old-growth temperate forest of China. Ecological Research, 23: 709–717.White E P, Ernest S K M, Adler P B, et al. 2010. Integrating spatial and temporal approaches to understanding species richness. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 365: 3633–3643.Whittaker R J. 2000. Scale, succession and complexity in island bio-geography: are we asking the right questions? Global Ecology and Biogeography, 9: 75–85.Wiens J A. 1989. Spatial scaling in ecology. Functional Ecology, 3: 385–397.Williams C B. 1943. Area and number of species. Nature, 152: 264–267.Williams C B. 1964. Patterns in the Balance of Nature. New York: Academic Press. Wright S J. 1988. Patterns of abundance and the form of the species-area relation. The American Naturalist, 131: 401–411.Yan Q L, Liu Z M, Zhu J J, et al. 2005. Structure, pattern and mechanisms of formation of seed banks in sand dune systems in northeastern Inner Mongolia, China. Plant and Soil, 277: 175–184.Yu F H, Wang N, He W M, et al. 2008. Adaptation of rhizome connec-tions in drylands: increasing tolerance of clones to wind erosion. Annals of Botany, 102: 571–577.Zhang J Y, Zhao H L, Zhang T H, et al. 2005. Community succession along a chronosequence of vegetation restoration on sand dunes in Horqin Sandy Land. Journal of Arid Environments, 62: 555–566.Zhang T H, Zhao H L, Li S G, et al. 2004. A comparison of different measures for stabilizing moving sand dunes in the Horqin Sandy Land of Inner Mongolia, China. Journal of Arid Environments, 58: 203–214.Zhu Z D, Zhao X L, Lin Y Q, et al. 1998. Sandy Land Rehabilitation Engineering. Beijing: China Environmental Science Press.
2013, Vol. 5 
