Fine-scale habitat differentiation shapes the composition, structure and aboveground biomass but not species richness of a tropical Atlantic forest

Evaluating the influences of fine-scale habitat heterogeneity on the composition,diversity,structure and functioning of forests is critical to understand how tropical forests will respond to climate change and devise forest management strategies that will enhance biodiversity conservation and aboveground biomass stock.Here,we hypothesized that topographic and soil factors determine fine-scale habitat differentiation,which in turn shape community composition,species richness,structure and aboveground biomass at the local scale in tropical forests.To test this hypothesis,we selected two areas(each 100×100 m)with contrasting fine-scale topographic conditions where all trees,palms and lianas with a diameter at breast height ≥ 10 cm were tagged and identified to species.In each selected area,100 subplots of 10×10 m were established.We mainly found that higher topographic variability caused higher habitat differentiation with changes in species composition and community structure,but did not change species richness.Our habitat-scale analyses indicated that,in the less heterogeneous area,the distribution of species was more uniform along a fine-scale topographical gradient with no variation in convexity,which induced changes in structure and aboveground biomass,but not in species richness.The nonsignificant relationship between species richness and aboveground biomass may be attributable to species redundancy or functional dominance.This study suggests that environmental filtering is a fundamental process for shaping community assembly and forest functioning along a local topographical gradient in tropical forests.

Community Characteristics of Wild Fruit Forests Along Elevation Gradients and the Relationships Between the Wild Fruit Forests and Environments in the Keguqin Mountain Region ofⅠii

In this paper,the quantitative relationship between the wild fruit communities and direct environmental factors is discussed on the basis of detailed data on landscape scale habitats obtained through field vegetation investigation.The results from TWINSPAN and DCCA showed that:1) In the distribution sections of the wild fruit forest in the Keguqin Mountain region,the basic patterns characteristic of the different habitats are due to topographic factors,nutrients and moisture conditions;2) The elevation affected the most basic differentiation of plant communities in the study area,indicating that the elevation condition was the most important factor restricting the distribution of the wild fruit communities in the study area;3) The close relationship between the moisture content in the upper soil layer and the elevation reflected the influence of moisture conditions on both wild fruit and herb-layer communities;4) Nutrient differences not only indicated that the habitat conditions were different in themselves but also showed that the present nutrient conditions of the habitats were seriously affected by human activities.In summary,under complicated mountainous topographic conditions,the habitat conditions for the communities differed very significantly,and the combination of elevation,soil moisture content,total nitrogen,slope aspect,and pH value influenced and controlled the formation of community distribution patterns in the study area.