Effects of biotic and abiotic factors on the MVPS variation
The contributions of edaphic, topography and spatial factors to the
variation of MVPS are similar to their contributions to the variation of
methylation rates. In the recovering forest, soil, topography and
spatial factors showed significant contribution to the variation of MVPS
via BD, P, mean elevation, convex and spatial distance, respectively,
but DBH and individual genetic background did not show significant
effects on MVPS (Table 1). In native forests, only the aspect of
topographic factors showed significant effects on MVPS (Table 1).
Therefore, an individual reactive mechanism in recovering forests has a
significant relationship with soil and spatial factors, but in native
forest, this relationship disappears. MVPS variation in the recovering
stand is negatively correlated with TP and AP and was significantly
positively correlated with BD.
Epigenetic spatial autocorrelation analysis showed that only among
DBH<40 cm individuals in recovering stands is there a
significant positive spatial autocorrelation in the 140 m range and a
significant negative correlation in the range of 220–440 m (Fig. 4a).
For other subpopulations, there was no significant spatial
autocorrelation (Fig. 4b, c, d). C. chinensis populations did not
show significant genetic spatial autocorrelation in all four individual
sets (Fig. 4e–h).