Investigating Environmental Factors Affecting Plant Distribution in QezelOzan - Kosar Rangelands (Ardabil Province), Iran

Journal of Rangeland Science

مقاله 3، دوره 12، شماره 4، دی 2022، صفحه 341-358   

نوع مقاله: Research and Full Length Article

شناسه دیجیتال (DOI): 10.30495/rs.2022.685602

نویسندگان

MirMilad Taheri Niari¹؛ Ardavan Ghorbani^{* 2}؛ Mehdi Moameri³؛ Sahar Ghafari⁴؛ Mahmood Bidarlord⁵

¹Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources

²Department of Range & Watershed Management, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Ardabil, Iran

³University of Mohaghegh Ardabili

⁴Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Mohaghegh Ardebil

⁵Watershed Management, Forests and Rangelands Research Department, Guilan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Rasht, Iran

چکیده

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of environmental factors on the plant composition and diversity in QezelOzan - Kosar rangelands of Ardabil province, Iran in 2016. Eight sites with elevation ranging from 900 to 2100 meters above sea level were selected, and three 100-m transects with 10 plots of 1 m² were established along each one. Species were collected from the plots and their vegetative forms were determined and the factors related to the frequency of species were recorded. Forbs frequency were determined as 2.1% to 33.3%, shrubs 0.4% to 29.2% and grasses 0.4% to 46.7%. Along each transect, a soil sample was collected from depths of 0 to 30 cm. Then, some soil properties such as pH, Electrical Conductivity, Calcium, Sodium, Potassium, Phosphorus, Nitrogen, Magnesium, Calcium Carbonate equivalent, Organic carbon and Soil texture were determined. Vegetation ordination analysis including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA), redundancy analysis (RDA) and Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) were performed in Canoco_4.5 and PC-ORD₅ software. Results of PCA showed organic carbon with eigenvector values of (0.42), nitrogen (0.41) and elevation (0.37) were important factors influencing the distribution of plants. CCA showed that elevation with eigenvector values of (0.37), potassium (0.35) and clay (0.44) were the most effective ones in forbs and grass distribution, potassium with eigenvector values of (0.35), pH (0.58) and organic carbon (0.42) were the most important factors. RDA in shrubs distribution also showed slope with eigenvector values of (0.44), elevation (0.37) and sand percent (0.46) were the most important factors. By doing this research, the basic knowledge of the ecological requirements in the rangelands of these areas was obtained. Thus, by the increase of technical knowledge, some activities can be done to protect, systematically exploit and restore the degraded areas.

کلیدواژه‌ها

Vegetative forms؛ PCA؛ Kosar County؛ Soil properties؛ Plant diversity

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