Species composition and sprouting regeneration of Fagus engleriana community in Tian-mushan Mountain

Owing to the special requirements of humidity and temperature, Fagus engleriana in China mainly distributes in the mountains of subtropical areas, while its congeners distributed in Europe and North America are of the dominant species in temperate zones. In this paper, the species composition and sprout regeneration of F. engleriana community in Tianmushan Mountain National Nature Reserve were studied. In three 30 m × 30 m sampling quadrates, 132 higher plant species were found, belonging to 51 families and 86 genera. The species (S) -area (A) relationship accorded with Arrhenius model, and the species-abundance relationship in the tree layer of the community met log-series model well (R² = 0.9596). F. engleriana, Quercus serrata var. brevipetiolata, and Castanea henryi were the dominant species in tree layer, Hydrangea umbellate and Viburnum erosum were the dominant species in shrub layer, and Indocalamus tessellates and Carex tristachya were the dominant species in herb layer. Higher species diversity was found in the community, and the diversity in shrub and herb layers was negatively correlated with that in tree layer. The F. engleriana community in Tianmushan Mountain was of climax community. Sprout regeneration was very common in the community, and 55% of the species in tree layer had the ability of sprouting. Especially for F. engleriana, its sprout number had a significant positive correlation with the DBH of mother plants.