Comparison of phytolith assemblages in the herbaceous communities of forest and grassland regions in Northeast China

Authors Xia Yingfan; Jie Dongmei; Li Dehui; Zhou Peifang; Song Lina; Meng Meng; Jiang Xuechun

Journal Acta Prataculturae Sinica , 2018,3:27

Abstract In order to investigate variations in the phytolith assemblages of different plant communities, the authors have analyzed the characteristics of 26 herbaceous communities from forest and grassland regions in Northeast China. A detailed comparison has been made of two aspects, phytolith morphology and the quantities of the various phytolith types found in the two regions'' herbaceous communities. Qualitative analysis of morphological characteristics revealed 15 phytolith species: saddle, trapeziform, rondel, bilobate,elongate, hair, lanceolate,papillate,parallepipedal bulliform cell,cuneiform bulliform cell, tabular stellate,silicified stomata,silicified vascular,globular papillate and oblong reticulate. Quantitative analysis of phytolith type distributions was carried out using variance and cluster analyses. Results showed that the forest and grassland regions can produce the same types but that some,such as tabular stellate,were found only in forest regions while others,such as cross,were found only in grasslands. There were also some differences in the quantity of phytolith types present in the two regions'' herbaceous communities. One-way ANOVA was done with data on the 26 phytolith assemblages and found that the average percentage of phytolith such as silicified vascular showed no significant differences between forest and grassland regions,while papillate and silicified tissue types showed disparities. Moreover, the percentage of short cell phytolith showed highly significant differences. Based on the results of cluster analysis, herbaceous phytolith assemblages from forest and grassland non-under-story were often similar while understory assemblages in the two regions were different. I_c index scores indicated that the habitats of herbaceous communities in forest regions were colder than those of grasslands. It is worth noting that the globular papillate type described in previous work was also found in this study,while the oblong reticulate type reported here has not been described in previously published literature.