Spatio-temporal pattern and spatial heterogeneity of ecotones based on land use types of southeastern Da Hinggan Mountains in China

Ecotones have received great attention due to its critical function in energy flux, species harbor, global carbon sequestration, and land-atmosphere interaction. This study investigated land use pattern and spatial heterogeneity of the ecotones among agricultural land, forest land, and grassland of the southeastern Da Hinggan Mountains in the northeastern China. The change of these delineated ecotones under different slopes and aridity conditions was analyzed by two landscape indices, edge density (ED) and core area percentage of landscape (CPL), to explore the inter-linkage between spatial structure of ecotones and socioeconomic development and land management. Specifically, the ecotones such as agriculture-forest (AF) ecotone, forest-grassland (FG) ecotone, and agriculture-forest-grassland (AFG) ecotone moved from the arid southeast to the humid northwest. The flat area with small slope is more edge-fragmented than the steep area since the ED decreases as the slope increases. The AF ecotone mostly found in the humid region is moving to more humid areas while the agriculture-grassland (AG) ecotone mostly found in the dry region is moving towards the drier region.