Supplementary material Table S1. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) for seedling and saplings in high altitude sub-tropical Quercus-dominated forests. Correlation coefficients (cc) of environmental variables and t-values (t) for axes 1 and 2; bold numbers represent critical value (df ≥ 18; α = 0.05) = 2.1.

Axis 1 / Axis 2
EIGENVALUES / 0.2966 / 0.1446
Variable / Code / cc / t / cc / t
Seedlings
Litter / Litter / -0.1395 / -1.9161 / 0.1529 / 2.1174
Canopy height / CAHE / 0.1578 / 2.3187 / -0.1273 / -1.8852
Canopy openness / CAOP / 0.1449 / 2.3153 / -0.0691 / -1.1134
No grazing / Gra0 / -0.1682 / -1.2458 / -0.4915 / -3.6699
Light grazing / Gra1 / 0.1744 / 1.6619 / -0.2464 / -2.3728
Saplings
EIGENVALUES / 0.2479 / 0.1867
Litter / Litter / -0.3088 / -2.5261 / 0.0411 / 0.5514
Aspect / ASP / 0.2127 / 1.7334 / 0.1732 / 2.3139
Canopy height / CAHE / -0.0818 / -0.6609 / -0.2174 / -2.8807
Canopy openness / CAOP / 0.3174 / 2.6837 / -0.0673 / -0.9321
Crown length / CRLH / -0.1816 / -1.5932 / 0.1473 / 2.1191
Moderate grazing / Gra2 / 0.1586 / 0.8792 / -0.2407 / -2.1879
Slope / SLO / -0.1046 / -1.0595 / -0.2778 / -4.6147

Supplementary material Table S2. Matrix correlations measured with the Mantel test and partial Mantel test between differences in floristic composition, environmental and geographical distance for seedlings and saplings in high altitude sub-tropical Quercus-dominated forests.

Seedlings / Saplings
r / p / r / p
Mantel test
Geographical distance / 0.2531 / 0.0002 / 0.2047 / 0.0004
Environmental distance / -0.0595 / 0.08 / -0.006 / 0.49
Partial Mantel test
Geographical distance; environmental distance partialled out / 0.2651 / 0.0002 / 0.2049 / 0.0006
Environmental distance; geographical distance partialled out / 0.0618 / 0.06 / -0.1202 / 0.47