Abstract Advances in the field of succession ecophysiology since the 1980s are overviewed in this paper. The microhabitats at early-succession stage are greatly different from the late ones because of erosion and vegetation modification during succession. In general, habitats are open and sunny at early-succession stage and more closed at late-succession stage. Environmental factors change faster with high temporal heterogeneity at early succession stage, but are more stable at late successional stage with high spatial heterogeneity. Water content is much lower with high temperature in early successional stands. Nutrient availability increased shortly (within several years) after the disturbances (eg. cutting, burning), then declined back with further succession. While N nutrients increase with succession in extreme oligotrophic stands or during primary succession. Different disturbances cause NH⁴⁺/NO₃^– ratio to change, which shows some influences on seedling shade response. Air humidity is usually very low, while air temperature and radiation with more red lights are high in early successional stands relative to late successional stands. Besides the differences in community composition, the ecophysiological attributes and adaptation of early successional plants are also different from the late successional plants. Those differences make the succession go smoothly. Contrasting to late successional plants, early successional plants share many sun-adapted characteristics, such as higher photosynthesis capacity, compensation and saturated light point, respiration, conductance and WUE relative to late ones. They also have good adaptability and high flexibility with high stress resistance and wide niches. Sunfleks and gaps play an important role in maintaining forest function and stability at late successional stages. With global climate change developing, communities in the process of secondary succession, deteriorated vegetation and early-succession ecosystems will occur more frequently on the earth.

     From the overlaid restorative vegetation map with the formation map and further analysis, coniferous forest, coniferous and deciduous broad-leaved mixed forest, shrubbery and meadow appear in this region as a result of human disturbance. The area of four vegetation types is about 34.6% . Coniferous and deciduous broad-leaved mixed forest is the dominant type in this area.

Abstract The relationships between species diversity and the community types, environmental variables and community structure, were studied using the richness indices, diversity indices and evenness indices. 1) Although species diversity within a community varied, there was a greater variation in species diversity among different communities. However, we found that this variation was not always statistically significant, indicating that these communities not only have heterogeneity, but also continuity. 2) It was the altitudinal gradient which determined the patterns of species diversity. With the increase of elevation, all diversity indices increased, and the relationships between diversity indices and altitude were positive correlated. 3) The order of sensitivity in terms of the responses of species diversity to altitude in forest communities was herb layer > shrub layer > tree layer. Richness indices of the tree layer and evenness indices of herb layer were significantly positive correlation to elevation, while diversity indices of the former and richness indices of the latter had a significantly negative correlation to it. 4) In order to measure community diversity as a whole, weighting parameter was used.

Abstract The interspecific relationships of the main tree species in the forest communities were studied using Fisher’s exact test for a 2 × 2 contingency table, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. 1) The number of species-pairs having positive or negative correlation for Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient test was higher than that of Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Compared with Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient test was more sensitive. 2) Similar ecological adaptability to habitats led to positive correlation between species, and different ecological adaptability resulted in negative correlation, which was proved with environmental interpretation of interspecific relationships. 3) Based on the results, 18 tree species in the communities were divided into four ecological groups, serving as an important theory basis for studying forest structure, function, dynamics and succession.

Abstract Diversity has become an important concept in the theory and practice of ecology. Many diversity indices have been introduced from other disciplines or devised purposely by ecologists and widely used in conservation management and environmental monitoring. However, many researchers have criticized their use because different diversity indices may rank sets of communities in different ways. The use of parametric families of diversity indices instead of a diversity index with a numerical value has been suggested by Patil, Taillie and others as a potential solution to this problem. Fourteen methods were reviewed and compared in this paper. They were divided into four groups. It was proved that within-group methods are equivalent to each other and among-group methods are not. It was suggested that Patil and Taillie’s right-tail-sum diversity be the first choice and Hurlbert-Smith-Grassle’s expected diversity be the second in diversity ordering. As an example, these method were applied to three forest communities in Dongling Mountain, Beijing, China.

Abstract The biotas of archipelagos and fragmented habitats frequently show a nested structure. That is, the species on depauperate islands represent proper subsets of those on richer islands, and the set of biotas as a whole forms a nested series. Like the species-area relationship, nested structures are observed in many types of habitats and in many taxa. Nestedness has been suggested to have implications for biological conservation, particularly in relation to SLOSS (single large or several small) debate regarding nature reserve design. Several metrics have been proposed to measure nestedness, and several null hypotheses against which to evaluate the nestedness. The causality of nestedness has been investigated in many studies. While nestedness may be influenced by many factors, ultimately it must result from selective immigrations, selective extinctions or both. Because only species presence-absence data are required to perform nestedness analysis so that the data from most inventory programs can be utilized. Thus, this is a field which is worthy for us to do further work.

Abstract Great progress on Quaternary palynology has been achieved with the research of global change. The study on relationship between pollen, vegetation and climate has been one of the foci on palynology in the world especially in recent years. Studies on the air pollen have been applied extensively to various aspects including the monitoring of the air environment pollution, studying the allergic properties of pollen, agricultural yield prediction, and the reconstruction of vegetation and environment of Quaternary. In recent years, for developing study of paleo-environment in the world, the Pollen Databases have been set up globally, using surface pollen studies. The “China Quaternary Pollen Database” (CPD) was developed over a 50 year period. Using these pollen data from CPD, biome simulation and reconstruction of modern (0 kaBP), Middle Holocene (6 kaBP) and the last Glacial Maximum (18 kaBP) have been carried out systemically, while pollen-climate transfer function and pollen-climate response surface have also been established. Some headways have been made on the alluvial pollen and the Palynology of environmental archaeological sites, which have yet to be studied in depth. The study on pollen rain of characteristic indicator species has important significance for reconstructing paleo-ecological environment.

      Because the artificial oasis took the place of the natural oasis, the function of natural oasis is weakening and nearly lost the ability of improving the environment, the habitat of wildlife and preserving the biological diversity in wild area. Since the Neolithic Age, the human being has emerged and evolved in this area, living mainly on hunting and herding, followed by herding and farming, and finally farming and herding. Therefore the human influence on the environment last a considerable long period of time. Since Qing Dynasty, especially after the foundation of new China (1949), the effect has increased sharply and been the dominant factor of the variation of environment in the latter-day, which presented on controlling of water resource, and so caused the change of water system, vegetation and desert etc.

     The biomass and energy partitioning in the warm temperate deciduous broad-leaved forest were analyzed. The partition of biomass and energy in oak forest ecosystems showed that the dominant tree species oak accounts for the biggest percentage in the forest. The biomass of oak forest was 60–200 t·hm^–2, tree layer 50–160 t·hm^–2. The percentage of tree layer biomass in community was 80%–90%, the percentage of oak biomass is 40%–100%. The forest net primary production was 5–24 t·hm^–2. The standing total energy value of the oak community was 83000 kcal·m^–2. The tree layer accounted for 96.65%, shrub layer 3.12%, and herb layer 0.23%. The energy density orders at different organs of tree layer were stem, root, branch and leaf, and the ratio was in 4:3:2:1. Shrub layer orders were stem, branch, root and leaf. After the biomass and energy density were analyzed, the concept model was developed for biomass and energy. The concept model would be the basis for abstracted mathematical and computer models will be established.

Abstract Accurate estimation of carbon storage at regional or provincial scale is important to understand the impact of global change on local terrestrial ecosystem in China. The carbon dynamics of a number of vegetation types is a key variable to carbon source and sink research at a greater scale. Based on forest resource inventory data, the organic carbon storage of forest in Shandong Province was estimated to be 43.31 Tg, accounting for 1.23% of Chinese total C pool and 78.72% of average C storage of China in terms of unit land area. The carbon densities were different among forest types, in range of 0.40–49.46 Mg·hm^–2. The actual forest carbon density is directly affected by human activities and disturbances. If considering forest succession, with more intensive management, and more rainfall, it would be more increase; and otherwise decrease or a lower increasing speed. We made a progress of research methodology which is mainly for including the four-side trees, economic forest, brush, and the soil in forest for the estimation, so that it would be more comprehensive and close to reality. According to the change of forest organic carbon storage and carbon density over the years, we projected its trend in future 10 years. After 3 years, the forest organic carbon storage of Shandong Province would be close to the average of China (by land area). And in 2010, it would increase to 90.31 Tg, about 2 times of the current C storage.

The trends of the macro-scale plant ecological models are: firstly, linking ecological models with other sciences, for example, introducing phenology into modeling, to seek its new development; secondly, linking models with modem non-linear theories for the reevaluation of the basic hypothesis for modeling; thirdly, linking models with modem science-technology such as 3S, IT and so on, for the stronger support from technologies, and finally, the concept of model development having been altering from individulism to holistism, which simulate a ecosystem as a whole functional unit.

     Based on our studies, we propose methods to improve the algorithm for estimating the mountain microclimate. It is well known that, in the past, when people simulated the mountainous climate, they always took it as a linear, balance and simple system. But we know now the mountainous climate is more complex and, we should regard it as a dynamic and complicated system in the future. When simulating it, we must combine it with the modem theories, especially the modem non-linear theory, to reinforce the theoretical study. At the same time, GIS and RS had proved to be useful in the simulation of the radiation. We should try to incorporate the advanced technologies (eg. GIS and RS) with other mountain microclimate models to improve their precision and help us better understand the microclimate in the mountainous region.

Abstract   Protective maturity is the key in protective forest management. Based on reviewing studies of progresses and questions of protective maturity, the authors point out that it is in a perfect state that forest was previously regarded as a pure, natural good. The factor of disturbance must be taken into account in our understanding of protective maturity for protective forest, especially nowadays with disturbance anywhere. The model on transformation of protective benefit is presented in this paper. The relationship between disturbance and protective maturity is analyzed and discussed with modeling, and a case study of soil and water conservation forest in western Liaoning Province. The authors argued that some protective forests can reach no, one, or more times protective maturity depending on the type, degree, continuance time of disturbance and other factors.

Abstract Microsatellites are simple tandemly repeated sequence motifs consisting of repeat units of l–6 bp in length. As genetic markers, they are widely dispersed in eukaryotic genomes. The advantages of microsatellites include high polymorphism, high abundance, codominance, selective neutrality and the possibility of automated detection and scoring. This review emphasizes the applications of microsatellites in population biology, especially in plant populations. The variability of microsatellites loci is often so high that, even with a small number of loci and a large number of individuals, most individuals have unique multilocus genotypes. It is therefore possible to address issues such as discrimination, relationships, structure, relatedness and classification or hierarchy, not only at the individual but also at the population level. Individual identification is critical for molecular studies of clonal plants. Although an efficient approach for individual identification, microsatellites have not so far been widely used in the investigation of clonal structure of plant populations. Several studies on the bur oak populations were cited to show the availability of microsatellites on parentage analyses and processes of gene flow within and among populations. The applications of microsatellites at the population level include genetic structure, effective population size and phylogenetic reconstruction. Genetic structure and diversity have been studied on many species, which include grasses, flowers and trees using microsatellites. Large fluctuations in effective population size usually translate into changes in the level of genetic variability and distribution of' allele frequencies. As microsatellite markers can provide nearly infinite loci and can be amplified from even partly degraded DNA, temporal change of genetic structure due to population size can thus be directly accessed. The contribution made by microsatellite makers to infer phylogenetic relationships among populations has been limited. We also discussed the correct use of the different classes or marker.

Abstract   The transgenic cotton (Gossypium spp.) expressing insecticidal proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis has been commercialized for production in China since 1997, and has a big release area in the field. The ecological risks have been studied from the beginning. This paper tries to review the advances of the research that focused on the ecological risks assessments of the transgenic cotton, which include the expression of Bt proteins and its efficacy on targeted insect pests, the escape of Bt transgenes, the risk of resistance evolution of the insect pests, and the effects on non-target organisms. The main objective of this article is to contribute to the development of biotechnology and biosafety studies in China. We propose a number of biosafety regulations that could be adopted and possible areas related to the ecological risks of Bt cotton that require further research.

Abstract   This paper introduces the Miyawaki’s method (ecological method to reforestation) for recreating environmental protection forest, which is devised by integrating the concept of potential natural vegetation and the Japanese traditional idea of shrine forest. The most importance of the method is to initiate and advocate restoration of native forest with native trees, and the purpose of the method is intended to shorten the time span largely for restoring natural forest vegetation in barren or non-tree land to 1/10–1/5 the normal period of natural secondary succession. Over 600 locations in Japan are successful for the reconstruction of' local forests since 1970, and also several overseas successful cases are in Malaysia, Thailand, Brazil, Chile and in some parts of China using this ecological method to reforest rainforest, evergreen broad-leaved forest and summer green forest. Out of question, it is useful and referential to restore and recreate Chinese ailing and destroyed forest vegetation using Miyawaki’s method from now on.