2.2 Effects of geographical location and climatic factors on the
formation characteristics of mini-patches in alpine meadow
The RDA revealed that the independent variation
of
latitude, longitude, altitude, accumulated temperature above 0℃ , and
accumulation
of precipitation explained 13.29%, 8.07%, 9.05%, 6.44%, and 2.44%
of the variation in the biomass distribution in mini-patches of
Gramineae, Cyperaceae, Leguminosae, forb and shrubs, respectively. With
regard to independent variation,
there
were significant correlations (P < 0.01) between
geographical location (longitude and latitude) and the characteristics
of
Gramineae,
the
accumulation of growing-season precipitation, and altitude and the
characteristics of Cyperaceae, the accumulation of growing-season
precipitation and longitude and the characteristics of Leguminosae, the
accumulation of growing-season precipitation and altitude and the
characteristics of forbs, and longitude and the characteristics of
shrubs (Fig. 4).
As independent variation explained less than 20% of the total variation
in the plant functional groups in mini-patches, environmental factors
(latitude, longitude, altitude, accumulated temperature above 0°C, and
accumulation of precipitation in growing season) were considered to have
no power to explain the variation in the plant functional group
distributions (Fig. 4).
The results also revealed that there were no significant correlations
between plant community characteristics in mini-patches and geographical
location, rainfall, and accumulated temperature characteristics. This
suggests that geographical location and climatic characteristics were
not the primary drivers of differences in plant community organization
and structure in our study area (Fig. 4).