• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.36 no.6
• /
• pp.651-661
• /
• 2022

Plants social network analysis, which combines plants society and social network analyses, is a new research method for understanding plants society. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between species, using plant social network analysis targeting Taejongdae in Busan, and build basic data for management. Taejongdae, located in the warm temperate forest in Korea, is a representative coastal forest of Busan Metropolitan City, and the Pinus thunbergii-Eurya japonicacommunity is widely distributed. This study set up 100 quadrats (size of 100m²each) in Taejongdae to investigate the species that emerged and analyzed the interspecies association focusing on major species. Based on the results, a sociogram was created using the Gephi 0.9.2, and the network centrality and structure were analyzed. The results showed that the frequency of appearance was high in the order of P. thunbergii, E. japonica, Quercus serrata, Sorbus alnifolia, Ligustrum japonicum, and Styrax japonicusand that many evergreen broad-leaved trees appeared due to the environmental characteristics of the site. The plants social network of Taejongdae was composed of a small-scale network with 50 nodes and 172 links and was divided into 4 groups through modularization. The succession sere identified through a sociogram confirmed that the group that include P. thunbergiiand E. japonicawould progress to a deciduous broadleaf community dominated by Q. serrataand Carpinus tschonoskii, using hub nodes such as Prunus serrulataf. spontaneaand Toxicodendron trichocarpum. Another succession sere was highly likely to progress to an evergreen broad-leaved community dominated by Machilus thunbergiiand Neolitsea sericea, using M. thunbergiias a medium. In some areas, a transition to a deciduous broad-leaved community dominated by Celtis sinensis, Q. variabilisand Zelkova serratausing Lindera obtusilobaand C. sinensisas hub nodes was expected.