Document Type : Original Articles
Authors
1
PhD. Candidate of Forestry, Department of Forestry, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tarbiat Modares, Noor, Mazandaran, Iran
2
epartment of Forestry, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tarbiat Modares, Noor, Mazandaran, Iran.
3
Department of Forestry, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Natural Resources and Agriculture Sciences, Sari, Mazandaran, Iran
Abstract
Nowadays, the need for sustainable resource management has led to introducing new methods for classification of managed resources. The importance of biodiversity and its management and considering to new methods for determining management units introduced the initial idea for this research. For this study of biodiversity in lowland forests of Khanikan located in Chalous, environmental units were initially determined by Two-way Indicator Species Analysis. The study area was classified into five different environmental units. For analyses of the diversity, richness and evenness of the environmental units, the Simpson, Margalef and Hill indices were used. For investigation of soil characteristics, four soil profiles were taken at different depths of the profiles (0-10, 10- 20, and 20 -30cm) for each environmental unit and conveyed to the laboratory. Some soil characteristics were analyzed in the laboratory. Factor analysis is a statistical technique for producing a foundation algorithm or specific model for determination of the complex relationship among variables. To identify the relationships within biodiversity, different indices with soil physic-chemical and biological characteristics were studied by principal component analysis (PCA). The location of soil variables on the axes indicates that nitrogen at the third depth, cation exchangeable capacity of the first and third depths, available phosphorous at all depths are settled on axis 1. The settling location all the biodiversity indices was also in the direction of axis 1. The left orientation of axis 1 was devoted to Simpson diversity, Margalef richness, and Hill evenness indices. Thus, each of the biodiversity indices had a direct relationship with soil characteristics in the left orientation of axis 1. Available phosphorous was introduced as the most effective factor on biodiversity indices.
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