1984 Volume 6 Issue 2 Pages 149-162
Fifty forest stands and sixty plant species were ordinated by a reciprocal averaging (RA) method to extract the major vegetation patterns of the forest in northwestern Kitakyushu City and nearby areas. The RA stand ordination on the first and second axes revealed three gradients of vegetation. They are the gradients (1) from the Quercus serrata-dominated forest to the Machilus thunbergii- or Aphananthe aspera-dominated forest, (2) from the Quercus- to the Castanopsis cuspidata-dominated forest, and (3) from the Aphananthe- or the Machilus- to the Castanopsis-dominated forest. The first two gradients showed high correlations of the stand RA scores to the canopy height and to the number of species found in the stand, but the third one did not. The former two, therefore, were referred to as the successional series of forests on the moist (bottomland) habitat and that on the less moist (foothill) one, respectively, and the third as the environmental gradient from moist to less moist habitats in matured forests. The RA species ordination showed the distribution center of each species in the above mentioned patterns of the forest vegetation.
