Arid Zone Research ›› 2024, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (12): 2094-2109.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2024.12.11

• Plant Ecology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Study on shrub species diversity and niche of wild fruit forest in Xinjiang

WU Mingjiang1(), QIU Juan2, ZHENG Feng1, LING Xiaobo1, WANG Xinyu1, YANG Yang1, YANG Jiaxin1, LIU Liqiang1()   

  1. 1. College of Horticulture, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi 830052, Xinjiang, China
    2. College of Life Sciences, Xinjiang Agricultural University, Urumqi 830052, Xinjiang, China
  • Received:2024-07-09 Revised:2024-08-30 Online:2024-12-15 Published:2024-12-20
  • Contact: LIU Liqiang E-mail:17854560591@163.com;llq9989@126.com

Abstract:

Shrub is an important part of forest community structure in Xinjiang wild fruit forest and plays an important role in maintaining ecosystem diversity and function. In this article, shrub communities of 4 wild fruit forest populations in JWTH, XHG, MHE and DXG were studied, then the species diversity and ecological niche of shrub were investigated by the means of sample plots (understory, forest gap, open space) and transversal lines (elevation lines between plots and wild fruit forest distribution). The results indicated that: (1) In the wild fruit forest: 110 species belonging to 26 genera and 18 families were found (see Annex 1 in the list), among which Rosaceae, Rosa and Cotoneaster are the dominant families and genera in the wild fruit forest; the areal-types of its families and genera are mainly distributed in the world and temperate zone; the important value accounts for a large proportion were Berberis (Berberis atrocarpa), Lonicera (Lonicera microphylla, Lonicera tatarica) and Rosa (Rosa beggeriana, Rosa laxa). There was no significant difference in shrub diversity coefficient among different habitats of the same wild fruit forest population, and the shrub diversity among populations gradually decreases from DXG, MHE, JWTH to XHG. (2) For the niche width, both BL and BS of B. atrocarpa in JWTH and MHE, L. microphylla in XHG were the largest, BL of B. atrocarpa in DXG had the largest Levins niche width and BS of Spiraea hypericifolia had the largest Shannon-Winner niche width. These species were widely distributed with strong ability of resource utilization and environmental adaptation. Ecological niche overlapped, <0.5 species pairs accounted for more than 50% of the total species pairs in wild fruit forest, and the similarity of environmental resources utilization was low, with weak competition between species. The shrubs of JWTH and MHE showed no significant negative association, while the shrubs of XHG and DXG showed no significant positive association, all of which were in the unstable early stage of succession. Conclusion: Xinjiang wild fruit forest was found with rich shrub species composition, the shrub species composition and diversity of different wild fruit forest populations were significantly different, the shrub population also was in an unstable state in the wild fruit forest ecosystem, which is closely related to the overall function of the wild fruit forest ecosystem.

Key words: shrub, diversity, flora, ecological niche, wild fruit forests, Xinjiang