Landscape Pattern Dynamics and Mechanisms during Vegetation Restoration: A Multiscale, Hierarchical Patch Dynamics Approach

The spatial pattern of vegetation changes during ecologicalrestoration, and these changes are affected by the processof restoration. The objective of this study was to integratethe pattern and mechanism of forest restoration in theDinghushan Nature Reserve (DNR), Guangdong, China,based on data from remote sensing and long-term fieldobservations. We studied the pattern dynamics of threemain forest types and their underlying mechanisms dur-ing restoration following a multiscale, hierarchical patchdynamics framework that integrates population, commu-nity, and landscape processes. Remote sensing data wereused to determine the changes in landscape pattern duringdifferent periods of forest restoration from 1978 to 2006.At the landscape scale, the number, area, and perimeter ofthe needle/broad-leaved mixed forest (MF) and the ever-green broad-leaved forest (BF) increased, whereas thoseof the tropical needle-leaved forest (NF) decreased duringsuccession. Our analysis based on long-term field observa-tions indicated that the change rate of NF was lower thanthat of MF during 1981–1996, but became much higherduring 1996–2007. The rate of change in landscape patternand the progression of succession stages were consistentwith each other. Our results also showed that species regen-eration and community succession are the biological basisof forest landscape dynamics during vegetation restora-tion. Landscapepatternanalysisallowedustoshow“what”happened during vegetation restoration and “where,” andpopulation and community analysis indicated “why” and“how” it happened.Key words: 3S, community succession, landscape pattern,long-term field observations, species composition, vegeta-tion restoration.Introduction