CADE (China)
The CADE (Competition and Diversity Experiment) was established in January 2018, representing the tropical-subtropical forest ecotone in southern China. It contains two sub-experiments: a competition experiment, which is designed to measure the niche overlap and fitness difference between tree species, and a BEF experiment, focusing on species diversity effect on a variety of ecosystem functions. The main goal of CADE is to explore the coexistence mechanisms underlying the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF).
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Aerial view of CADE (November 2020) |
Design
Competition experiment
The Competition experiment includes 4 species and consists of 6 blocks (48 m × 28 m), with 84 plots (4 m × 4 m) in each block. Following the response surface design, every plot contains 2 species at four different densities (25, 36, 64, and 100 saplings per plot) and five abundance proportions (A: B = 1:0, 3:1, 1:1, 1:3, 0:1). The tree saplings were planted at the equal planting distance of 0.8, 0.67, 0.5, and 0.4 m in the densities of 25, 36, 64, and 100 saplings per plot, respectively.
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Response surface design. |
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Layout of the Competition experiment. |
BEF experiment
The BEF experiment consists of 8 blocks (32 m × 20 m), with 40 plots (4 m × 4 m) in each block. Each plot was planted with 64 tree saplings of 1, 2, 4 or 8 species. In each block, a monoculture for each of the 8 species, 18 different 2-species mixtures, 12 different 4-species mixtures and 2 plots with all 8 species were planted. Species combinations in 2 and 4-species plots were randomly selected. The saplings were planted at an equal planting distance of 0.5 m in each plot.
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Layout of the BEF experiment. |
Site characteristics
name | CADE-BEF | CADE-Competition |
---|---|---|
location | Heerkou | |
former land use | Cropland, planted with rice, peanut and vegetable | Cropland (block 1-4) and orange groves (block 5 and 6) |
altitude (m) | 50 | |
soil type | Red Sandy Loam, Ferrosol (FAO) | |
area (m2) | 5102 | 8064 |
no of plots | 320 | 504 |
plot size (m2) | 16 | 16 |
no of trees planted | 20 480 | 27 300 |
planting date | 2017 | |
diversity variables | species richness | - |
diversity gradient | 1, 2, 4, 8 sp. | - |
size species pool | 8 | 4 |
species pool | Erythrophleum fordii, Pinus massoniana, Castanopsis fissa, Castanopsis carlesii, Schima superba, Elaeocarpus sylvestris, Ilex rotunda, Cinnamomum camphora | Erythrophleum fordii, Pinus massoniana, Castanopsis fissa, Castanopsis carlesii |
contact person | Chengjin Chu (储诚进) |
Research
The CADE was designed to answer the following questions (but not limited to, actually):
Extra information
For more information on the CADE, send an e-mail to the contact person or explore the publications.
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Aerial view of CADE (November 2020) |