Biodiv Sci ›› 2023, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (5): 23059.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2023059

• Original Papers: Plant Diversity • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of simulated warming on seasonal dynamics of herbaceous diversity in temperate secondary forests in Northeast China

Zhehan Chen1,2, Jin Yin2, Ji Ye2,5, Dongwei Liu2,3,4,5, Zikun Mao2,5, Shuai Fang2,5, Fei Lin2,5,*(), Xugao Wang2,5   

  1. 1. School of Life Sciences, Liaoning University, Shenyang 110036
    2. CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Shenyang 110016
    3. Qingyuan Forest Ecosystem Research Station of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016
    4. Qingyuan Forest, National Observation and Research Station, Liaoning Province, Shenyang 110016
    5. Liaoning Province Key Laboratory of Terrestrial Ecosystem Carbon Neutrality, Shenyang 110016
  • Received:2023-02-21 Accepted:2023-03-28 Online:2023-05-20 Published:2023-05-19
  • Contact: * E-mail: linfei@iae.ac.cn

Abstract:

Aims: Climate warming mainly caused by human activities has led to changes in terrestrial plant diversity and community structure. Forest herb layer, as the main contributor of plant diversity in forest ecosystem, has a significant response to climate warming, however, relevant studies are still lacking. This study explores the changes of herbaceous community in temperate forests in the context of climate warming, including diversity, community structure, and species composition, in order to provide scientific basis for the response of forest herbaceous layer to climate warming.
Method: This experiment was carried out in 2021 and 2022 on a simulated warming platform built by Qingyuan Forest Ecosystem Research Station of Chinese Academy of Sciences, which used an infrared ray to warm the surface soil by 2℃ during the growing season.
Results: The results showed that there was no significant change in herbaceous diversity under warming conditions, but the community diversity index of each season showed a decreasing trend. After warming, the overall coverage and abundance of the herbaceous community did not change significantly, but the composition and structure of the herbaceous community changed significantly. Specifically, the response trend of different dominant species to warming was different. Among the dominant species throughout the year, the response of Brachybotrys paridiformis was the most obvious, as its importance value, abundance, and coverage increased significantly, while that of Meehania henryi decreased significantly. Cardamine leucantha and Hylomecon japonica had no significant response. Lastly, the importance value of Allium monanthum, which is the seasonal dominant species, was significantly decreased, while that of Adoxa moschatellina was significantly increased.
Conclusion: Warming has no significant effect on herbaceous diversity in the forest in this study, but it may lead to the advancement of the phenological period of some species, change the competition between species in the community for resources such as light, or affect the development of functional traits of some species. Furthermore, it may change the importance value, abundance, and coverage of dominant species in different seasons, and lead to significant changes in the composition and structure of the herbaceous community.

Key words: infrared warming, community structure, species composition, dominant species, seasonal dynamics