Relationship between diversity of forest plant species and environmental gradient in eastern mountainous area of Heilongjiang Province, China

Abstract

Twenty-three secondary forest communities with different structure were selected in Mao’er Mountain National Park of Heilongjiang Province, China to study the relationship between diversity of forest plant species and environmental gradient. The forest plant species diversity was analyzed by the diversity index, and the environmental factors was quantified by the method of Whittaker’s quantification of environmental gradient. Meanwhile, β-diversity indexes of communities were calculated with similar measurements. The results showed that the Shannon-wiener diversity index of forest plant species increased with the increase of the environmental gradient, and the β-diversity indexes of communities showed a liner increase along with the change of environmental gradient.

Keywords

Species diversity / Forest plant species / Heilongjiang Province / Shannon-wiener diversity / β-diversity index / Environmental gradient