Vegetation Spatial Heterogeneity of Different Soil Regions in Inner Mongolia, China

The vegetation spatial heterogeneity and ecological characteristics in different soil regions were analyzed by surveying the vegetation in 12 different soil regions of Inner Mongolia, China, including coniferous-broadleaf deciduous forests, shrub, grassland, and desert regions with 1122 large 2 cm × 2 cm quadrats (actual size 30 km × 30 km, referred to as L-quadrat hereafter) in about 1.18 million km². Each L-quadrat was divided into four small 1 cm × 1 cm quadrats (actual size 15 km × 15 km, S-quadrat). The vegetation was analyzed based on the beta-binomial distribution to describe the frequency of occurrence and spatial heterogeneity for each kind of vegetation. The weighted average of the heterogeneity of all vegetation in the same soil region provides a measure of the soil regional landscape level heterogeneity which describes the spatial complexity of the regional landscape composition of the existing vegetation. Comparison of the vegetation characteristics in the 12 soil regions shows that, the calcic gray soil has the highest average vegetation type per quadrat. The largest soil region is calcic chestnut soil and has the most vegetation types. Every soil region has its own dominant vegetation sequence which dominates in occurrence and dominant vegetation types which dominates in spatial heterogeneity. For the Inner Mongolian vegetation, the weighted average of the heterogeneity is 0.60 and the vegetation diversity index is 4.47.