Quantitative analysis of endangered Acanthopanax senticosus communities in Dongling Mountain of Beijing

Abstract

Based on the survey of community plots, a quantitative analysis of endangered Acanthopanax senticosus communities in Dongling Mountain was performed with two way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN), detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA). The communities of A. senticosus were classified into 9 types by TWINSPAN and the results were validated by DCA. On the DCA graph, the first axis reflected the gradient of altitude and the second axis reflected the aspect and slope. Most of A. senticosus were distributed in the thick forests at a high altitude with little light. With the exception of being a dominant species of shrub layers in a few communities, A. senticosus has a relatively scarce distribution. In accordance with DCA, the results of CCA also show the trend that the distribution of A. senticosus communities varied along with the gradient change of environmental factors. Altitude and light are the main factors affecting A. senticosus growth.