The effect of slope aspect on vegetation attributes in a mountainous dry valley, Southwest China

Slope aspect plays a critical role in influencing vegetation pattern in semiarid area. The dry valleys of the Hengduan Mountains Region, southwestern China, are striking geographical landscape, suffering from severe ecological degradation. Here, we comprehensively investigated how slope aspect affec...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 16465 - 11
Main Authors: Yang, Jie, El-Kassaby, Yousry A., Guan, Wenbin
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 05.10.2020
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio
Subjects:
631/158/670
631/158/853
631/449
704/158/670
704/158/853
Biodegradation
Biodiversity
Biomass
Environmental degradation
Humanities and Social Sciences
Mountains
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Soil nutrients
Species composition
Species diversity
Valleys
Vegetation
Vegetation effects
Vegetation patterns
China
ISSN:2045-2322, 2045-2322
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Slope aspect plays a critical role in influencing vegetation pattern in semiarid area. The dry valleys of the Hengduan Mountains Region, southwestern China, are striking geographical landscape, suffering from severe ecological degradation. Here, we comprehensively investigated how slope aspect affects vegetation attributes in one of these valleys- the dry valley in the upper reaches of Min River. Three sites were selected along the valley and we quantitively examined the vegetation difference between slope aspects at the whole valley scale and each site level. We found significant vegetation differences between slope aspects in species composition, vegetative structure, and biodiversity pattern, which were in accordance with the observed significant difference in soil nutrient. Generally, north-facing slopes are associated with higher biomass, coverage and height, and species diversity than south-facing slopes. We also found between-aspect differences varied among the study sites, resulting in increased biomass, height, and β diversity differences, decreased density and coverage differences, and opposite trend observed in α diversity at relatively wet site. In conclusion, slope aspect had significant effect on vegetation attributes, which was significantly influenced by local climate (aridity) in terms of both strength and direction depending on the specific attributes investigated.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-020-73496-0