Karst tiankengs as refugia for indigenous tree flora amidst a degraded landscape in southwestern China.

ABSTRACT: We conducted floristic and community analyses to compare the floristic composition, forest structure, taxonomic richness, and species diversity between two tiankeng (large doline, or sinkhole) habitats and two outside-tiankeng habitats of forest fragments in a degraded karst area in southwestern China. We found remarkably higher taxonomic richness in the tiankeng habitats than in the outside-tiankeng habitats at the species, generic, and familial levels. The inside-tiankeng habitats had higher floristic diversity but lower dominance. The remarkably higher uniqueness at all taxonomic levels and the much larger tree size in the two tiankeng habitats than in the outside-tiankeng habitats demonstrated the old-growth and isolated nature of the tiankeng flora. Plot-scale species richness, Shanno

SUBMITTER: Su Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5484678 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature