Plant community characteristics and their relationships with soil properties in a karst region of southwest China

In this study, we analyzed plant community characteristics and the relationship between plant and soil properties based on forest successional stages in depressions between karst hills. The secondary forests showed the maximum number of species, genera, and families with important values > 5 and the highest species diversity, and primary forest was the optimal community structure. The arboreal layer played a dominant role in determining fragile karst ecosystem status, followed by shrubs, Al2O3, and Fe2O3. A close relationship existed between species diversity and soil organic C, total N, total P, Fe2O3, MnO, microbial biomass C, and microbial biomass P. Plant characteristics could be explained by the soil nutrient factors (21.6%), soil microbes (17.1%), soil mineral components (10.2%), and interactions among these variables (29.3%).