Ishida, Hiroaki, Takahira, Hibiki, Takeda, Yoshiaki, Tochimoto, Daisuke, Uchida, Kei, and Hattori, Tamotsu
In order to examine the effect of dwarf bamboo coverage on forest floor vegetation in a beech（Fagus crenata Blume）forest, we investigated the relationship of species composition and richness of forest floor vegetation with dwarf bamboo coverage in such a forest on Mt Oginosen, Japan. We set a total of 260 quadrats（area of each quadrat, 5 m×5 m）in the forest and identified all the vascular plant species. In case of forest floor plants, stand scores obtained by using detrended correspondence analysis（DCA）showed a significant correlation with dwarf bamboo coverage. However, this correlation coefficient was very low, indicating that dwarf bamboo did not have a substantial effect on the species composition of the forest floor. The presence of dwarf bamboo did not affect the frequency of occurrence of other forest floor plants. The number of species of forest floor plants per quadrat had no significant correlation with dwarf bamboo coverage. From these results, we concluded that the effect of dwarf bamboo coverage on the species composition and richness of forest floor vegetation was extremely limited. Also, we considered that the forest floor vegetation mainly comprised shade-tolerant species capable of coexisting with dwarf bamboo, explaining the above results.