Study on species composition and vertical structure of near-nature scenic forest in Mt. Yangtai, Shenzhen.

Suburban scenic forest plays an important role in the urban ecological security and ecological landscape. Understanding their species composition and vertical structure can provide technical support for scenic beauty cultivation and recreation cultivation of secondary forest. We collect data by investigating a representative near-natural secondary forest from 1 hm2 permanent plots in Mt.Yangtai, Shenzhen. We apply two methods cluster analysis and niche characteristics to study plant species composition and community vertical structure. The results show that the permanent plots have 72 tree species which belong to 34 families and 57 genera including 6 large woody vines in the permanent plots. The dominant families are Lauraceae, Rubiaceae, Myrsinaceae, Celastraceae, Aquifoliaceae, Rutaceae, Theaceae, Myrtaceae; the dominant species are Machilus chekiangensis, Adina pilulifera, Machilus chinensis, Ardisia quinquegona, Psychotria asiatica, Euonymus nitidu, Ilex triflora, Zanthoxylum avicennae, Adinandra millettii, Syzygium hancei and so on. The near-natural secondary forest is made of single dominant species community M.chekiangensis (importance value is 24.85 %). M.chekiangensis forms the canopy layer, of which the vertical spatial niche breadth value is the largest and the niche overlap value versus A.pilulifera and versus M.chinensis is above 0.78. It is found that M.chekiangensis community has relatively rich species, of which species composition and structure is stable, and the main species has a relatively reasonable vertical spatial distribution pattern. It indicates that M.chekiangensis community is a climax community in the zonal vegetation of south sub-tropic evergreen forest, which appears in an extensive distribution in the low hills of Mt.Yangtai in Shenzhen.