Niche characteristics of dominant plant populations of Tilia breviradiata deciduous broad-leaved forest in Dashushan, Hefei.

The niche characteristics of dominant tree and shrub populations in Tilia breviradiata deciduous broad-leave forest were analyzed using a quantitative method in Dashushan of Hefei.The niche breadth,niche overlap and interspecific association were discussed in this paper via Levins,Shannon-Wiener and Pianka's algorithms. The results showed that the niche breadths of T. breviradiata were big,the Levins and Shannon-Wiener niche breadths of T. breviradiata in the tree layer was 7.0350 and 2.0125 respectively. Niche similarities of main tree species was low. The niche overlap of T. breviradiata with others in tree layer was in range from 0.32 to 0.76,the niche overlap of T. breviradiata with Phyllostachys strobilacea,Fortunearia sinensis,Quercus aliena Blume var. acuteserrata was relatively high. The niche breadths of P. nidularia,Symplocos paniculata and the dominant species in shrub layer were also high. So did the niche overlaps among the species with the same or similar environmental requirements. Those between the species of broad niche breadth with other species were much greater,while the niche similarities among species with low niche breadths were large.