Effects of different forest practices on Pinus tabulaeformis population dynamics and species diversity in the Huanglongshan forest region

Abstract

Three Pinus tabulaeformis populations which experienced tending, shelterwood cutting, and closed tending were separately investigated to study the effects of these three forest practices on the age structures, static life tables, survivorship curves, and species diversities of P. tabulaeformis populations in Huanglongshan Mountain. Time sequence model was adopted to predict the dynamic population numbers of different P. tabulaeformis populations with different forest practices. The results revealed that the three populations are essentially identical in population structure, their young and old individuals make up a small proportion and their mid-aged individuals make up a large proportion and consequentially P. tabulaeformis populations generally stand stable. In the P. tabulaeformis communities with three tending practices, the highest species abundance index appears with tending and shelterwood cutting and the highest evenness index and species diversity appears with closed tending. The P. tabulaeformis populations with tending and shelterwood cutting practices belong to one developmental type and the P. tabulaeformis populations with closed tending practices belong to a stable type. It indicated that in the future, closed tending as the major practice and tending and shelterwood cutting as the supporting practices should be applied for P. tabulaeformis populations in Huanglongshan Mountain so that the communities will develop continuously.