ECOLOGICAL APPLICATION OF WAVELET ANALYSIS IN THE PERIODIC DISTRIBUTION PATTERN OF DESERT PLANT

J. B. Xie (P. R. China) and T. Liu (P. R. China)

Received January 30, 2008

Abstract

Vegetation patchiness is a common feature in semiarid and arid landscapes, which are seen as mosaics including vegetated and non-vegetated components. In our previous work, we found the periodic distribution pattern of vegetation along east-west direction at Gurbantunggut desert to address this issue, we investigated the distributions and habitats of Ceratoides ewersmanniana in two plots the distance between the plots is 15km) at Gurbantunggut desert. First of all, wavelet analysis was employed to detect and quantify the scales and periods of clumps. Furthermore, using wavelet analysis, we study the importance of habitats’ terrain to biological patterns. Remarkably, the analysis showed some interesting results: First of all, the distributions of C.ewersmanniana were non-continuous, rather showing aggregated and periodic distribution patterns (125m for C.ewersmanniana) along east-west direction, which were caused by the geomorphologic oscillation period at 120 to 125m. Second, clump diameter of C.ewersmanniana which detected by position variance is 60m to 75m.

Keywords and phrases: caespitose plants, periodicity, edge effect, wavelet analysis.