Chin J Plant Ecol ›› 2022, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (6): 632-641.

• Research Articles •

### Impact and mechanism of maintaining biomass stability in a temperate coniferous and broadleaved mixed forest

YU Shui-Jin, WANG Juan(), ZHANG Chun-Yu, ZHAO Xiu-Hai

1. Research Center of Forest Management Engineering of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
• Received:2021-08-04 Accepted:2021-12-29 Online:2022-06-20 Published:2022-06-09
• Contact: WANG Juan,ZHANG Chun-Yu
• Supported by:
National Natural Science Foundation of China(31971650)

Abstract:

Aims Forest ecosystem changes with time in response to environmental fluctuations and disturbances, and the research on its stability and influence mechanism is conducive to maintaining ecosystem services. The temperate coniferous and broadleaved mixed forest is an important component of the global forest ecosystem. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the influence of overyielding, stand structure, species asynchrony and dominant species stability on the community stability of a temperate natural coniferous and broadleaved mixed forest and to clarify its main influence mechanism.

Methods In this study, species richness, coefficient of variation of diameter at breast height (DBH), species asynchrony, and dominant species stability were used as independent variables, and community biomass stability, mean biomass and standard deviation of biomass were set as dependent variables, respectively. In this case, three structural equation models were constructed to quantify the relative size of the direct and indirect effects among all variables.

Important findings (1) The structural equation model provides a good fit for the data and accounts for 40.6% of the community biomass stability changes. (2) Species richness was significantly negatively correlated with mean biomass and standard deviation of biomass, with the path coefficients -0.103 and -0.061, respectively. (3) The coefficient of variation of DBH was significantly negatively correlated with the community biomass stability and mean biomass, and the path coefficients were -0.123 and -0.097, respectively. (4) Species asynchrony was significantly positively correlated with the community biomass stability, mean biomass and standard deviation of biomass, and the path coefficients were 0.055, 0.085 and 0.055, respectively. (5) Dominant species stability was significantly positively correlated with the community biomass stability and mean biomass, with the path coefficients 0.623 and 0.085, respectively. And it has a significant negative correlation with the standard deviation of biomass, with the path coefficient -0.68. The results showed that although species asynchrony and stand structure both have significant effects on the community's biomass stability in the temperate coniferous and broadleaved mixed forest, but the dominant species stability is the main factor that directly affects the community biomass stability.