![]() Inertia graphics indicate that inertia is best accounted for by three groups. Figures show clustering with three groups specified. Subsequently individual sites may be reassigned to other groups on the basis of K-means clustering. Clusters are first selected using hierarchical clustering with Ward’s criterion and a specified number of clusters. Plot-level tree data can identify vegetation community types, but is poorly representative of the richness and density of other life-forms, and poorly represents forest fragmentation responses for the entire plant community.Ĭlusters generated by hierarchical clustering on principal components (HCPC) on the presence-absence plot data from the Xishuangbanna forest fragment plots for (a) tree species data only, (b) species of all life-forms (“all data” including trees, lianas, herbs and ferns), (c) species of all plant life-forms except trees data (“non-tree data” including lianas, herbs and ferns). All life-forms responded to fragmentation variables but their responses did not consistently match with responses of trees. However, the slopes of these relationships differed substantially between community types. Tree species diversity and density indices poorly predicted cognate indices of lianas and ferns, but represented herbs well. ![]() Presence-absence data from all life-forms generated three community clusters, with only small differences between classifications, suggesting that tree data identified community types representative of all vascular plant life-forms. We compared fragmentation responses, with respect to the three measures, of all four life-forms. ![]() We tested how well measures of tree diversity, density and composition, predicted cognate indices in other life-forms. We compared community types generated by clustering presence-absence data for the non-tree life-forms with those generated for trees. But are these patterns and responses representative of other plant life-forms? We sampled trees, lianas, herbs, and ferns in a fragmented tropical forest landscape in South-west China. Our understanding of the patterns of plant diversity in tropical forests and their responses to fragmentation are mostly based on tree surveys. ![]()
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