Plant community type and site conditions of coastal forests consisting of evergreen broad-leaved tree species in warm temperate zone in south-west Japan

Abstract

This study is intended to clarify the relationship between species composition and site conditions of the coastal forest consisting of broad-leaved tree species in the warm temperate zone. We set quadrats continually from the seaside toward the inland side in each coastal forest, and then we carried out every tree investigation. We divided the community types based on relative dominance by TWINSPAN. Furthermore, we analyzed the relations of community types and site conditions by classification tree. As a result, the forests of investigated area were divided into eight community types. Of these, five community types were comprised of coastal high tree species, and two community types were comprised of the coastal high tree and shrub species, and one community type was comprised of other trees. Soil type, annual precipitation, relative height, distance from the forest edge of the seaside of each quadrat were chosen as the factors for the analysis by classification tree method. As the result of classification, the soil type sprit the community type in the first branch.