The ecological responses of Pinus tabulaeformis forests in Taiyue Mountains of Shanxi to artificial Harvesting
山西太岳山油松群落对采伐干扰的生态响应

The ecological responses of Pinus tabulaeformis to harvesting have been of great concern in forest ecological research in recent years. Pinus tabulaeformis forest plays an important role in forest regeneration ecology and forestry in warm temperate regions. However, the distribution range of the Pinus tabulaeformis forests has been continuously decreased together with the reduced productivity of the forest for the exportation due to the anthropogenic activities. The forest resources is at the edge of exhausting. This paper studied the ecological responses of Pinus tabulaeformis forests to the harvesting. In addition, we investigated the diversity of Pinus tabulaeformis forests and the law of regeneration and succession under different disturbance intensity and time recovery using richness index, Simpson, Shannon-Wiener, Evenness indices, Jaccard, and Spreson indicators. The objective of our study was to understand the characteristics, the diversity, and natural regeneration, in order to understand the fundamental conditions of forest community ahead and have a good knowledge of the characters of the plant community in this area, and provide theoretical basis for the protection of the diversity and the sustainable exploration. Our results demonstrated that: 1) The species and the amount of community were influenced by harvesting. At the initial stage of harvesting disturbance, sun plants increased observably, however, the species are richer gradually. The ingredients display the characters from the simplicity to complex, from the monopoly of sun plants to the increase of the species of shade plants. 2) Appropriate harvesting increased the diversity of the forest community, but clear harvesting decreased the diversity of the comprehensive species diversity. 3) After disturbance by the same harvesting, the highest similarity of species could be observed between communities. Clear harvesting changed the condition of communities thoroughly and the similarity was different from the natural forest. 4) Six regenerative species could be observed mainly including Pinus abulawformis and Quercus liaodungensi in the secondary forest disturbed by harvesting. The sapling amount reached the peak at the 18-year of harvesting Pinus abulawformis forest and reached its bottom after the artificial harvesting.