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Chin. Geogra. Sci. 2015 Vol. 25 No. 2 pp. 184197 Springer Science Press doi: 10.1007/s11769-014-0671-8 www.springerlink.com/content/1002-0063
Spatio-temporal Pattern and Spatial Heterogeneity of Ecotones Based on Land Use Types of Southeastern Da Hinggan Mountains in China
YU Lingxue1, 2, ZHANG Shuwen1, LIU Tingxiang3, TANG Junmei4, BU Kun1, YANG Jiuchun1 (1. Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China; 2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3. Bureau of Land and Resources of Linyi City, Linyi 276000, China; 4. Department of Geography and Environment Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA)
Abstract: Ecotones have received great attention due to its critical function in energy flux, species harbor, global carbon sequestration, and land-atmosphere interaction. This study investigated land use pattern and spatial heterogeneity of the ecotones among agricultural land, forest land, and grassland of the southeastern Da Hinggan Mountains in the northeastern China. The change of these delineated ecotones under different slopes and aridity conditions was analyzed by two landscape indices, edge density (ED) and core area percentage of landscape (CPL), to explore the inter-linkage between spatial structure of ecotones and socioeconomic development and land management. Specifically, the ecotones such as agriculture-forest (AF) ecotone, forest-grassland (FG) ecotone, and agriculture-forest-grassland (AFG) ecotone moved from the arid southeast to the humid northwest. The flat area with small slope is more edge-fragmented than the steep area since the ED decreases as the slope increases. The AF ecotone mostly found in the humid region is moving to more humid areas while the agriculture-grassland (AG) ecotone mostly found in the dry region is moving towards the drier region. Keywords: ecotones; core area percentage of landscape (CPL); edge density (ED); modified moving split window; land use pattern; spatial heterogeneity
Citation: Yu Lingxue, Zhang Shuwen, Liu Tingxiang, Tang Junmei, Bu Kun, Yang Jiuchun, 2015. Spatio-temporal pattern and spatial heterogeneity of ecotones based on land use types of southeastern Da Hinggan Mountains in China. Chinese Geographical Science, 25(2): 184197. doi: 10.1007/s11769-014-0671-8
1 Introduction
Defined as the transition area between adjacent ecological systems (Holland et al., 1991), ecotones have received great attention due to its critical function in energy flux (Cadenasso et al., 2003; Hufkens et al., 2009), species harbor (Schilthuizen, 2000), global carbon sequestration...