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).