Short Communication |
Corresponding author: Yu Xu ( xuyu608@gznu.edu.cn ) Academic editor: Ji-Zhong Wan
© 2021 Zhaoyang Cao, Liang Dou, Nan Yang, Kai Zhang, Bin Wang, Yu Xu, Jianghong Ran.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Cao Z, Dou L, Yang N, Zhang K, Wang B, Xu Y, Ran J (2021) Evaluating the effectiveness of vegetation conservation on a sacred mountain in western China. Nature Conservation 45: 1-9. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.45.72215
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Sacred natural sites, as probably the oldest form of habitat reserve for religious or cultural causes worldwide, are suggested to have an important role in conserving vegetation; however, there are insufficient data supporting the detailed implications of such sites for vegetation conservation. Thus, we evaluated the effectiveness of vegetation conservation on a Tibetan sacred mountain in Yajiang County, Sichuan, China, by investigating species richness and the structural attributes of higher vascular plant communities on and around the sacred mountain from April to June 2009. The results showed that the number of tree species on the sacred mountain was significantly higher than that in the surrounding area, but there were no notable differences in the numbers of shrub and grass species between the two sites. The sacred mountain harbored a greater number of small, short trees compared with the surrounding area, wherein the low-shrub and grass understory was relatively dense. We conclude that the sacred mountain has a positive impact on indigenous vegetation protection, but disparities in the management of the allowed uses of such sites could reduce their conservation effectiveness.
Forest conservation, indigenous communities, richness, sacred natural site, vegetation structure
There are numerous ethnic groups across the world, which have existed for centuries, for the most part from ancient times (
Some research has indicated a higher plant diversity in sacred sites compared with open-access sites. For example,
In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of vegetation conservation on a Tibetan sacred mountain in western China. By comparing higher vascular plant (i.e., seed plant) communities on and surrounding the sacred mountain, we investigated whether species richness and the structural attributes of communities differed between the sacred mountain and the surrounding area.
The study site was located in Pamuling (30°06'N, 101°11'E; Fig.
Map showing the location of the study site (black triangle) and sampling points (white dots) on and surrounding the sacred mountain.
The area surrounding the sacred mountain was accessible. The woodlands in the surrounding area were under threat from cutting by the local communities for cooking and heating, despite a national logging ban imposed on natural forests in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in 1998 (
We conducted fieldwork to measure species richness and the structural attributes of higher vascular plant communities (including tree, shrub and grass layers; see Table
Species richness and structural attributes of higher vascular plant communities measured in the study.
Item | Description |
---|---|
Species richness | |
Number of tree species | Counted |
Number of shrub species | Counted |
Number of grass species | Counted |
Structural attributes | |
Number of trees with DBH < 10 cm | Counted |
Number of trees with DBH 10–30 cm | Counted |
Number of trees with DBH ≥ 30 cm | Counted |
Coverage of trees with height < 5 m | %, Estimated following the method proposed by |
Coverage of trees with height ≥ 5 m | |
Coverage of shrubs with height < 1.5 m | |
Coverage of shrubs with height ≥ 1.5 m | |
Grass coverage |
We used multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to examine the differences in richness of tree, shrub and grass species between the sacred mountain and its surrounding area. We used principal component analysis (PCA) on structural attributes measured between the two sites to identify the most prominent gradients, and examined their differences using permutational multivariate analysis of variance (PERMANOVA). We operated the analyses on R 4.0.5 (
The number of tree species in the sacred site was significantly higher than in its surrounding area (Fig.
Number of higher vascular plant species between the sacred mountain and the surrounding area A tree, B shrub and C grass. Boxplots show the median, 25th, and 75th percentiles, Tukey whiskers (median ± 1.5 × interquartile range). ***, P < 0.001; NS., P > 0.05.
The PCA analysis (Fig.
Multivariate principal component analysis (PCA) of the structural attributes of higher vascular plant communities. The triangle and round points, with 95% density ellipses, represent the sacred mountain and its surrounding area, respectively. Abbreviations: treeH1, number of trees with DBH < 10 cm; treeH2, number of trees with DBH 10–30 cm; treeH3, number of trees with DBH ≥ 30 cm; treeC1, coverage of trees with height ≥ 5 m; treeC2, coverage of trees with height < 5 m; shrubC1, coverage of shrubs with height < 1.5 m; shrubC2, coverage of shrubs with height ≥ 1.5 m; grassC, grass coverage.
This study investigated the differences in species richness and the structural attributes of higher vascular plant communities between a Tibetan sacred mountain and its surrounding area. The results showed that the sacred mountain maintained a higher number of tree species than the surrounding area, which is consistent with many previous studies on sacred natural sites (
However, we did not find a significantly higher richness of shrub and grass species on the sacred mountain compared with its surrounding area. Previous studies (e.g.,
Nevertheless, the coverage of shrubs < 1.5 m in height and grasses was obviously less on the sacred mountain than in the surrounding area. This might be the result of allelopathy (
In conclusion, this study revealed the effectiveness of vegetation conservation on a Tibetan sacred mountain in western China. In terms of access and utilization, such sites can complement officially protected areas. However, ‘sacred’ might be a relative term, given disparities in the management of allowed uses of resources such as trees, shrubs, and grasses. Therefore, conservation knowledge based on community ecology should be introduced to indigenous communities. In addition, the sacredness of a site might mean more to local peoples than to outsiders (
We thank the Forestry Bureau of Yajiang County and Pamuling Monastery for permission and support for the fieldwork. We thank two reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Joint Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Karst Science Research Center of Guizhou Province (grant number U1812401); Guizhou Provincial Department of Science and Technology-Guizhou Normal University Joint Fund Project (grant number LH [2017] 7369); and Doctoral Foundation of Guizhou Normal University (grant number 2016).