Relationship between plants and soil resource patterns on forest land at different scales using a new theoretical model

Jian Hou, Huiqing Wang and Zongshan Li

Ecological Modelling, 2017, vol. 349, issue C, 33-40

Abstract: Recently, plant root or crown size has been used in researching spatial relationships between plants and soil resources in most studies, and different methods have been used to address this relationship. However, few studies have reviewed the quantification of the relationship between plants and soil resources, and few studies have explained the roles of different plant functional groups on the soil resource distribution. In this paper, a method called integration of geostatistics, point pattern analysis and spatial comparison (IGPS) was used to quantify this relationship. The relationships between plants and soil resource patterns were evaluated from four plots with different spatial scales and different slopes within the Ziwuling Mountains of China. Several relationships were identified using IGPS. We have proved that in IGPS, the aggregation scale between plants and soil resources has been substituted for root or crown size to deeply reveal the spatial relationship between plants and soil resources. The results confirm that this method can not only determine which plant functional group can be affected by which resource but can also quantify the spatial relationship between plants and soil resources. These findings are important because this knowledge can be useful in formulating pasture and forest management strategies. IGPS is a powerful method to assist in study of the spatial relationships between plants and soil resources, and we recommend that this method be used worldwide.

Keywords: Aggregation scale; Spatial comparison; Light condition; Herbaceous understory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438001630326X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:349:y:2017:i:c:p:33-40

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2017.01.015

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath

More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().