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

doi:10.17521/cjpe.2021.0282

Abstract

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.

Key words: community biomass stability, overyielding, stand structure, species asynchrony, dominant species stability

YU Shui-Jin, WANG Juan, ZHANG Chun-Yu, ZHAO Xiu-Hai. Impact and mechanism of maintaining biomass stability in a temperate coniferous and broadleaved mixed forest[J]. Chin J Plant Ecol, 2022, 46(6): 632-641.

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URL: https://www.plant-ecology.com/EN/10.17521/cjpe.2021.0282

https://www.plant-ecology.com/EN/Y2022/V46/I6/632

Figures/Tables 2

Fig. 1 Effect of the predictor variables on community biomass stability (A), mean biomass (B) and standard deviation of biomass (C) in a temperate coniferous and broadleaved mixed forest, from multiple regression models (mean ± SE). DBH, diameter at breast height. *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01; ***, p < 0.001.

Fig. 2 Structural equation models for testing the relative effects of species richness, coefficient of variation of diameter at breast height (CVDBH), species asynchrony and dominant species stability on community biomass stability (A), mean biomass (B) and standard deviation of biomass (SDbiomass)(C) in a temperate coniferous and broadleaved mixed forest. The test parameters were p = 0.692, comparative fit index (CFI) = 1.000, standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.002. Solid arrows represent significant paths and dashed arrows represent non-significant paths (black = positive; grey = negative). For each path, the standardized regression coefficient is shown. The thickness of the arrows reflects the magnitude of the standardized regression coefficients. R2 denotes the proportion of variance explained. *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.01; ***, p < 0.001.

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