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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. For. Glob. Change
Sec. Forest Growth
Volume 7 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2024.1456882
This article is part of the Research Topic Un-Even Aged Forest Management and Climate Change Adaptation View all articles

Soil available phosphorus and pH are key factors affecting the site index of Larix kaempferi plantations in China

Provisionally accepted
Hong Yang Wei Hong Yang Wei 1,2,3Dongsheng Chen Dongsheng Chen 1*Chunyan Wu Chunyan Wu 1*Xiaomei Sun Xiaomei Sun 1*Shougong Zhang Shougong Zhang 1*
  • 1 Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
  • 2 Research Institute of Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
  • 3 Key Laboratory of Tree Breeding and Cultivation, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Assessing the quality of forest sites is crucial for evaluating the potential productivity of forests and formulating effective management strategies. Therefore, it is essential to understand how environmental variables affect the site quality. This study focuses on quantifying the effects of 44 dfferent environmental variables including climate, topography, soil properties on site index of Larix kaempferi plantations in three different climate regions in China, utilizing the random forest algorithm. L. kaempferi site index, determined from stem analysis data by felling dominant trees from 51 even-aged stands. The results indicated that the proposed random forest model explained approximately 59.47% of site index variations. Among many environmental variables, available phosphorus, pH, Degree-days above 5°C (DD5), spring mean maximum temperature (Tmax_MAM) had significant effects on site index (P < 0.05) and the importance of soil chemical properties generally exhibit relatively larger effects on site index than climate variables and topography variables. The partial dependence analysis revealed that the L. kaempferi plantations had maximum values at approximately 30mg/kg of available phosphorus in the first soil layers, 30mg/kg of available phosphorus in the second soil layers, 20mg/kg of available phosphorus in the third soil layers, the DD5 between 2600 ℃ and 3000℃ and Tmax_MAM approximately 15℃. Our findings attempt to provide a better understanding of the sitegrowth relationship.

    Keywords: Larix kaempferi, site index, Environmental Variables, climate, topography

    Received: 29 Jun 2024; Accepted: 18 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wei, Chen, Wu, Sun and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Dongsheng Chen, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
    Chunyan Wu, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
    Xiaomei Sun, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China
    Shougong Zhang, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.