Comparing Fuzzy, CCA and RDA ordination techniques to analyze the vegetation changes in various management treatments (Case study: Kohe- Namak-Ghom)

Ordination methods assist mangers to explore the relationships between environmental variables and vegetation patterns along various environmental and management gradients. The ordination results have some limitation when there is high heterogeneity and uncertainty about environmental variables. Fuzzy ordination was used in the current study to explore the relationships between vegetation changes and environmental gradients in two sites (Planted- exclosure and control site) located in Kohe Namak- Ghom. The effectiveness of this ordination method to obtain the vegetation patterns was also compared with CCA & RDA. Some Soil properties data (Caso4, EC, Ca, Ca+Mg, Caco3, pH, Cl and OM) were collected from both sites and various ordination techniques were used to analyze the data. The correlation between ordination plot axis and vegetation cover was used as a basis for comparing the effectiveness of different analysis techniques. According to the results, the correlation between ordination plot axis and vegetation cover in CCA and Fuzzy ordination methods were 0.496 and 0.618 respectively. It can be concluded that Fuzzy method is a more appropriate technique for exploring the relationships of vegetation and soil properties than other studied techniques in the study area.