soil-site relations for trembling aspen (populus tremuloides michx.) in northwestern ontario
abstract
soil-site relations for trembling aspen in northwestern ontario were
studied using 98 site plots representing a wide range of glacial
landforms, soil conditions, and site quality. site index was related to
features of soil and topography using multivariate statistical analyses
including principal component analysis, multiple regression analysis and
cluster analysis. site index ( si = height of dominant and codominant
trembling aspen trees at 50 years breast-height age) was used as the
dependent variable; 45 soil and topographic values were used as
independent variables. principal component analysis combined with
correlation coefficients was used to select 10 variables from 22
variables that were closely associated with site index; these 10 variables
are not closely correlated with each other. preliminary regressions
indicated that the soil-site relationships were much better expressed
when plots were stratified into three landform types as opposed to a
single regression combining all plots.
final regression equations were computed describing soil-site
relationships on soils developed from glaciofluvial, morainal, and
lacustrinal landforms. the final regression equation for the glaciofluvial
soils included depth to root restricting layer and drainage class as site index
predictor variables. the final regression equation for the morainal
soils included silt plus clay content of the a horizon, coarse fragment
content of the c horizon, and depth to root restricting layer. the final
regression equation for the lacustrine soils included the clay content of
the c horizon, and depth to mottles.
the 98 plots were clustered into six groups representing different soil
conditions. the fec soils s3, s4, s5 were the best sites; the ss8, ss7, s7,
s8, ss5, ss4 were the worst sites for aspen. however, cluster results
were not significant due to a wide range of site indices within each of the
six defined groups. large standard deviations and standard errors of the
mean exist in most groups. thus the use of these groups is not
recommended for estimating aspen site index.
collections
- retrospective theses [1604]