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| Vegetation composition and distribution on the northern slope of Karlik Mountain to Naomaohu basin, East Tianshan Mountains |
| YiBing QIAN, HaiYan ZHANG, ZhaoNing WU, ZhongChen WANG |
| 1 Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China; 2 Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China; 3 College of Geology and Exploration Engineering, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China |
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Abstract This paper reports the characteristics of plant flora in the region of the northern slope of Karlik Mountain to Naomaohu basin, based on field investigation of the vegetation and referring to relevant literature. The results show that the flora of the study area mainly consists of communities of single species or a limited number of species, genera and families. The flora composition is marked by the phenomenon of dominant families and genera; the temperate element occupies a dominant position, while in terms of the genera the Tethys element is an important component. Areal-types of the species are dominated by the floral element of Asian Central-part with xerophytic characteristic, and the life-forms of plants are mainly perennial and herbaceous. These characteristics reflect that the compositions of the species in this region possess both ancient and young elements. Analysis of the relationship between the species composition, plant community diversity and altitude gradient, we found that the structure of the vegetation has an obvious vertical distribution. The lower and higher altitude areas, where the climate conditions are relative inclement, are mainly occupied by the plant communities with simple structure and single dominant population, while the species richness in the mid-altitude area increases with favorable temperature and precipitation. Consequently, the species diversity and evenness indices show single-peak distribution with increasing elevation (about < 2500 m), while the dominance indices decrease in elevation from 500 m to 2500 m and increase in elevation of > 2500 m.
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Received: 16 July 2010
Published: 07 March 2011
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