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Forest recovery after clear-cutting in Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis) plantations of North China

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Abstract

In Hebei Province of North China, forest was recovered with natural recruitment in plantations with large area of clear-cutting Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis). This study was aimed to demonstrate the dynamic characteristics of recruits during the natural recruitment. Both plot survey and the spatial point-pattern analysis were performed. Five developmental stages of natural recruitment were selected and studied, including 1 year before and 2, 5, 8, and 11 years after clear-cutting. Different slope aspects were also included. Natural recruitment was always dominated by Chinese pine with a proportion of higher than 90%. For plots of 1 year before clear-cutting on east- and north-facing slopes, recruit densities were 7886 and 5036 stems/hm2, the average heights were 0.78 (±0.85) and 1.06 (±1.15) m, and the average diameters at breast height (DBH) were 3.21 (±1.38) and 2.91 (±1.38) cm, respectively. After clear-cutting, recruit density was initially increased, then it was gradually declined with time; however, the variation of average DBH was contrary to that of recruit density. Both of them were no longer varied between 8 and 11 years after clear-cutting. The average height of recruits continued to increase after clear-cutting. For the plots of 11 years after clear-cutting on east- and north-facing slopes, average heights of recruits reached 2.00 (±1.14) and 2.24 (±1.20) m, respectively. The statuses of recruits on north-facing slopes were better than those on east-facing slopes after clear-cutting. Meanwhile, recruits on east-facing slopes were always aggregated at small scales, while spatial pattern of recruits varied with time on north-facing slopes. Moreover, forest was recovered more quickly by natural recruitment than by artificial afforestation after clear-cutting. The structural diversity was higher in naturally regenerated forests than in plantations of the same age. Our results demonstrated that clear-cutting of Chinese pine plantations recovered by natural recruitment has the potential to be an effective approach for establishing multifunctional forest.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFD0600501) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (TD2011-08).

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  1. The first and second authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of the Ministry of Education, College of Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Boqian Dong, Kuangji Zhao, Zhibin Wang, Zhongkui Jia & Lvyi Ma

  2. College of Biological Sciences and Technology, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Xinli Xia

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  1. Boqian Dong
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  2. Kuangji Zhao
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Correspondence to Zhongkui Jia.

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Dong, B., Zhao, K., Wang, Z. et al. Forest recovery after clear-cutting in Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis) plantations of North China. J. Arid Land 10, 233–248 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40333-018-0004-3

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