MONITORING MULTISPECIES INTERACTIONS: A CASE STUDY OF 16 MAIN TREE SPECIES ALONG THE NORTHEAST CHINA TRANSECT

Abstract

Viability of single species can be understood only in the context of ecological interactions with the other species and the environment. Monitoring multispecies interactions and their environment is critical for analysis of community dynamics, multispecies habitat conservation plans and for adaptive ecosystem management programs. In this study, three simple methods (scaling exponent of Taylor's power law, resource exploitation competition and interspecies mean crowding coefficients) based on abundance were applied to estimate multiple tree species interactions along the Northeast China Transect. This transect was identified as a middle-latitude transect for terrestrial ecosystem studies by Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystem Program of IGBP. Our analyses show the differences and similarities of these three methods because each one emphasizes different aspects of multispecies interaction measurement. The combined use of these three methods can provide an easy and simple way to estimate multispecies interactions based on abundance of each tree species and their change under environmental change. The suggested approach could help identify indicator species for monitoring, improve population viability analysis, and set priorities species conservation. Keywords. Interspecies mean crowding coefficients, multispecies habitat conservation plans, Northeast China Transect, resource exploitation competition, Taylor's power law