IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i14p5808-d386752.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Karren Habitat as the Key in Influencing Plant Distribution and Species Diversity in Shilin Geopark, Southwest China

Author

Listed:
  • Kun Li

    (School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
    Laboratory of Beijing Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing 100083, China
    National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Mengyuan Zhang

    (School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
    Laboratory of Beijing Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing 100083, China
    National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Yilun Li

    (School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
    Laboratory of Beijing Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing 100083, China
    National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Xiaoyi Xing

    (School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
    Laboratory of Beijing Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing 100083, China
    National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Shuxin Fan

    (School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
    Laboratory of Beijing Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing 100083, China
    National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Yu Cao

    (School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
    Laboratory of Beijing Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing 100083, China
    National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Li Dong

    (School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
    Laboratory of Beijing Urban and Rural Ecological Environment, Beijing 100083, China
    National Engineering Research Center for Floriculture, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Desheng Chen

    (Yunnan Yuntou Ecology and Environment Technology Co., Ltd., Kunming 650217, China)

Abstract

Karst rocky desertification (KRD) is one of the biggest challenges in the karst ecological restoration of Southwest China, and a thorough understanding of the plant community characteristics in various karren habitats provides a basis for mitigating KRD and restoring the degraded ecosystem. To improve our knowledge of the detailed characteristics and impact mechanisms of karren habitats on the species distribution and species diversity patterns of woody and herbaceous plants to benefit sustainable management and planting design for revegetation establishment in the karst region, a field investigation was carried out in the natural restoration vegetation of Shilin Geopark. The results indicated that karren habitats apparently determine the species diversity and composition. At the arbor layer, the habitat with the highest α diversity was solution corridor (SC), and at the shrub layer, grikes (GR) were the karren habitats with the most diverse communities. At the herb layer, solution rock debris (SRD) showed the highest richness of herbaceous species. The karren habitat features and topographic factors significantly influence plant α diversity and distribution. Soil area (SA) and canopy density (CD) were the dominant factors influencing plant diversity at the arbor, shrub and herb layers, soil thickness (ST) was significantly effective at the arbor and herb layers. Karren habitat height (KHH), litter thickness (LT), and slope gradient (SG) were significantly influential at the herb layer. The impacts of the karren habitat width (KHW), slope aspect (SAS), and SG on woody species distribution were significant. Knowledge obtained from this study will be helpful guidance for future sustainable restored vegetation design and management with high biodiversity and regional characteristics in the karst area of Southwest China and other fragile karst ecosystems in the world.

Suggested Citation

  • Kun Li & Mengyuan Zhang & Yilun Li & Xiaoyi Xing & Shuxin Fan & Yu Cao & Li Dong & Desheng Chen, 2020. "Karren Habitat as the Key in Influencing Plant Distribution and Species Diversity in Shilin Geopark, Southwest China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-16, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:14:p:5808-:d:386752
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5808/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5808/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brody Sandel & Jens-Christian Svenning, 2013. "Human impacts drive a global topographic signature in tree cover," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 1-7, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xue Miao & Congbin Leng & Shiyu Dai & Jing Jin & Jiansong Peng, 2023. "Construction of Multi-Level Ecological Security Pattern for World Natural Heritage Sites from the Perspective of Coupling and Coordination between Humans and Nature: A Case Study of Shilin Yi Autonomo," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-20, October.
    2. Marián Lukáč & Ľubomír Štrba & Alexander Černega & Samer Khouri, 2021. "Recent State Policy and Its Impact on Geopark Establishment and Operation in Slovakia," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-17, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Changjun Gu & Pei Zhao & Qiong Chen & Shicheng Li & Lanhui Li & Linshan Liu & Yili Zhang, 2020. "Forest Cover Change and the Effectiveness of Protected Areas in the Himalaya since 1998," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-24, July.
    2. Jonas Nüchel & Jens-Christian Svenning, 2017. "Recent tree cover increases in eastern China linked to low, declining human pressure, steep topography, and climatic conditions favoring tree growth," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-19, June.
    3. Gregory Duveiller & Federico Filipponi & Andrej Ceglar & Jędrzej Bojanowski & Ramdane Alkama & Alessandro Cescatti, 2021. "Revealing the widespread potential of forests to increase low level cloud cover," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, December.
    4. Nobuo Imai & Takuya Furukawa & Riyou Tsujino & Shumpei Kitamura & Takakazu Yumoto, 2018. "Factors affecting forest area change in Southeast Asia during 1980-2010," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-14, May.
    5. Jennifer Hewson & Stefano C. Crema & Mariano González-Roglich & Karyn Tabor & Celia A. Harvey, 2019. "New 1 km Resolution Datasets of Global and Regional Risks of Tree Cover Loss," Land, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-14, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:14:p:5808-:d:386752. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.