Edge Effects in Two Secondary Tropical Montane Rainforests at Jianfengling, Hainan Island of China
- Received Date: 2004-06-14
Abstract: The strength and distance of edge effects in two secondary tropical montane rainforests at Jianfengling, Hainan Island of China were predicted with a newly proposed model:Y=a+e0[1-(D/Dmax)],where Y was the value of a variable measured;e0 was the maximum value of edge effects;D was the distance from the edge to a point at which Y was recorded; Dmax was the distance from the edge to the point at which edge effects reached zero;and α was a constant. The species richness of plants with diameter at breast height less than 5 cm obtained from 44 plots of 4 m2 in two forests each containing a secondary forest after clear-cut and a remined forest was used to fit the model and the following results were obtained.The edge effects in the tropical montane rainforests were well described by the proposed model;The maximum distance (Dmax) at which edge effects reached zero was,in general,less than 15 m;and at the same plot,the edge effects on species richness of the remaining forests and on that of the secondary-forests after clear cut were not significantly different.