2007 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 73-83
A lucidophyllous forest in Kawanaka, Aya, Miyazaki Prefecture, was studied in order to clarify the relationship between tree size (height and DBH) and species richness of the epiphytes on each tree. In this area, a total of 168 lucidophyllous trees (24 species), including 56 Castanopsis cuspidata var. cuspidata, 37 Quercus gilva, 18 Persea thunbergii, 18 Distylium racemosum and 39 others, were chosen as the sample trees. The epiphytes on the sample trees comprised 20 species, including Lepisorus thunbergianus, Lemmaphyllum microphyllum, Neofinetia falcata, and Selaginella involvens. Phytosociological examination showed that the epiphytes adapted to each tree species could not be differentiated. The species richness of the epiphytes on each sample tree had a high positive correlation with tree DBH (cm). This relationship was expressed by the regression formula: y=0.07x-1.45 (where y is the number of species, and x is DBH (cm) of the sample tree). The epiphytes were classified into three types according to the similarity of their distributional patterns on a two-dimensional scale formed by the number of epiphytes and DBH (cm). There was a significant difference in the species richness of the epiphytes between primeval forest, and natural and semi-natural forests, and this difference was related to the absence of diaspore resources for epiphytes in the latter two.
