Simulation for Artificial Forest Succession in Hilly-gully Area of Loess Plateau, China

Abstract:

The wide and large afforestation caused the great changes of surface albedo, water cycles, soil compositions and regional climate conditions on the Loess Plateau. There was increasing evidence showed that many problems had been occurred since ecological protection program began. Whether the artificial forest would adapt to environmental conditions on Loess Plateau is still controversial. In this paper, LANDIS-II, a spatially explicit model which included extension modules such as succession, disturbance, seed propagation, forest management, carbon dynamics and climate change, was applied to simulate dynamic natural succession of forests for coming 300 years in hilly-gully area of Loess Plateau. The results showed that (1) During the advancement of succession, the study area was occupied by different communities and appeared different succession stage successively under the condition of without considering the disturbance; (2) The current artificial forest has changed from 93.31% of Robinia pseudoacacia to exit the forest community in 50 years; (3) Platycladus oriental was the dominant species of coniferous trees and Populus davidiana was the dominant species of deciduous trees; (4)During the late succession stage, Platycladus oriental replaced Pinus tabulaeformis becoming the largest areal proportion of dominant tree species. The simulating of the natural succession in hilly-gully area of Loess Plateau forests at large space and long term scales, could provide a scientific basis for rational allocation of forest resources and forest management. In addition, our work clarifies the challenges and opportunities for the application of the model in the artificial forest and in hilly-gully area of Loess Plateau, China.