Classification of Landscape Types Based on Land Cover, Successional Stages and Plant Functional Groups in a Species-Rich Forest in Hainan Island, China. (March 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhang, Zhidong; Zang, Runguo; Wang, Guangyu; Huang, Xuanrui
• Is Part Of: Tropical conservation science. Volume 9:Number 1(2016)
• Page Start: 135
• Page End: 152
• Publication Date: 2016-03
• Subjects: vegetation type -- recovery stages -- tropical forest -- remote sensing -- GIS; Rain forest conservation -- Periodicals; Rain forest ecology -- Periodicals; Rain forest conservation; Rain forest ecology; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 577.34
• DOI: 10.1177/194008291600900107
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1940-0829

Abstract

Large-scale identification of landscape types in species-rich forest ecosystems is a challenge to landscape designers and forest ecologists. With a systematic grid-sample-plot investigation and landscape-attributes extraction of SPOT-5 imagery in a tropical forest region in Hainan Island, China, we developed a landscape classification system of land cover, successional stages, and dominant plant functional groups in species-rich forest ecosystems. We classified the study landscape into eight land cover types, four successional stages, and six functional patch types, with accuracies at ≥ 78%. The patches dominated by the pioneer functional groups were mainly distributed in areas of early recovery stages on sunny slopes at elevations < 850 m, while the climax functional groups had more occupancies in the late recovery stages on shaded slopes at elevations > 850 m. The slope gradient had no significant influence on the patch distribution patterns in the study region. Our results show that species-rich forest landscapes can be classified into patch types of different dominant functional groups and successional stages through remote sensing in conjunction with ground survey and GIS.