The integration of planted and natural forests in a regional landscape

Kavanagh, Kathleen L.; Stankey, George H.; Boyle, James

doi:10.1007/978-94-017-2689-4_30

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 7 publications

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“…The patterns of natural landscape are primarily modified by anthropogenic disturbances in many regions of the world, although they are influenced by diverse factors [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Such patterns have profound consequences in the ecosystem and the products that they provide [ 4 , 5 ]. Most of landscape changes have occurred as a result of change in land use types.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Landscape Patterns in Typical Mountainous Counties Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River in China

Yang

Shi

Liu

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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The landscape patterns of plantations (PT) are the results of human disturbances on local vegetation, and in turn, differ greatly from natural forests (NF), since the patterns strongly influence the natural circulation of material and energy. There is a need to understand the differences of landscape patterns between PT and NF, to establish a near natural afforestation strategy. This study chose three typical silvicultural counties in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River as the research areas and compared the landscape patterns of NF and PT, with other land use types (grassland, GL; cropland, CL; shrubland, SL; orchard, OR; built-up land, BUL; bare land, BL; and water bodies, WB). The results revealed that the areas of PT accounted for 7.67%, 12.05%, and 18.97% of three counties, bigger than GL, OC, BUL, BL, and WB, as one of main land use types. The landscape patterns of PT (mean patch size between 2.06 to 6.05 ha) were more fragmented than NF (mean patch size between 5.83 to 53.91 ha). NF areas increased along the relative altitude gradient, from 0 to 2500 m, while PT areas peaked from 100–1000 m. The higher the altitude, the more typical the zonal distribution of PT, the more aggregated the NF. NF had significant negative correlations with BL, BUL, CL, PT, GL, and OC, which suggest that human activities had seriously interfered with NF. Although PT as an ecological protection strategy was increasing, the landscape patterns of PT were obviously different from NF. This may affect the material energy flow in the ecological environment. The results in the present study have great implications in the other regions in China and the relevant parts of the world where natural forests were heavily disturbed.

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