SPECIES DIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY STRUCTURE IN FOREST FRAGMENTS OF GUANGZHOU, SOUTH CHINA

Abstract

To study how fragmentation impacts tree species composition and community structure and provide information for efficient conservation of these fragments, we collected data from 138 forest fragments (referred to as fengshui woods by local people) in southern China and compared them with those collected from a well protected large natural reserve, the Dinghu Mountain Biosphere Reserve (Dinghu). Our data indicated that the forest fragments contained lower mean plot species richness compared with Dinghu but total species richness of the plots as a network and species richness variance among plots were higher in the fragments than in Dinghu. Results from regression analyses indicated that fragment age and fragment size were significantly related to community composition or structure. These results indicated that protecting the fragments would conserve greater diversity of regional tree species than a single large reserve. However, if resources are limited, our results suggest that it is possible to increase resource-use efficiency in conserving regional tree species diversity by choosing large adjacent fragments as a network favouring primary species and small fragments favouring secondary species. If such information is available, choosing the least number of fragments, which would include all regional tree species or the maximum number of tree species, would be the best conservation strategy.