Effect of competition on spatial patterns of oak forests on the Chinese Loess Plateau
KANG Di1,2, DENG Jian2,3, QIN Xiaowei4, HAO Fei5, GUO Shujuan2,3, HAN Xinhui2,3*,
YANG Gaihe2,3*
1 College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China; 2 The Research Center of Recycle Agricultural Engineering and Technology of Shaanxi Province, Yangling 712100, China; 3 College of Agronomy, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China; 4 Spice and Beverage Institute Research, Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, Wanning 730070, China; 5 Yunnan Baiyao Group CO., LTD, Kunming 650500, China
Abstract Reforestation or natural forest regeneration is an alternative measure for controlling soil erosion
in degraded land on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP). However, our understanding of the temporal
dynamics and the spatial patterns of forest regeneration remains inadequate. Two oak forests at different
development stages were investigated to determine the spatial patterns of competitions (intraspecies and
interspecies) during different successional stages. The intraspecies and interspecies spatial relationships
among different tree diameters at breast height were analyzed at multiple scales by Kriging interpolation
method and univariate and bivariate O-ring statistics. Our analytical results indicated that self-correlation
and competition intensity were relatively high between oak and pine trees in the early development stage
of oak forests due to their clumped distributions of heavy seeds. Birch trees had a lower competition in
comparison to oak trees although birch was the dominant species. Therefore, asymmetric competition of
oak trees was most likely to have led to their edge dispersal and their success in replacing the pioneer
species. Asymmetric competition means that larger individuals obtained a disproportionately large share
of the resources and suppressed the growth of smaller individuals. Kriging interpolation analysis showed a
tendency towards homogenization caused by interspecies competition during the succession of oak forests.
Our results demonstrated that the competition was the driving factor in the spatial distribution of oak
forests on the CLP.
The National Natural Science Foundation of China (41301601) and the Special Fund for
Forest Scientific Research in the Public Interest (201304312).
Corresponding Authors: HAN Xinhui
E-mail: hanxinhui@nwsuaf.edu.cn
Cite this article:
Hormoz SOHRABI,Siavash BAKHTIARVAND-BAKHTIARI,Kourosh AHMADI. Effect of competition on spatial patterns of oak forests on the Chinese Loess Plateau[J]. Journal of Arid Land, 2017, 9(1): 122-131.
2017, Vol. 9 
