Western Liaoning Province is characterized by huge areas of lowly-efficient Chinese pine (Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) pure plantations. How to transform these plantations has become an increasingly significant management problem. In this study, the authors summarized the approaches, which are based on close-to-nature silvicultural system, to transform the pure pine plantations. Native broadleaved trees were planted in three methods: 1) after strip clearcutting, 2) after patch clearcutting; 3) on the open forestland and the forest edge. The transformation targets and the selection of tree species were expatiated in this paper. The key techniques and their application conditions for each method were analyzed and discussed. Through investigation and contrastive analysis, the assessment was made to the stands transformed by strip method. Results showed that the mixed stands at 16 years after transformation had an obvious layered structure and the species richness of understorey vegetation increased by 23.5%–52.9%. Soil enzyme activities of urease, phosphatase and sucrase increased by 6%–142%, 46%–99% and 31%–200%, respetively. Moreover, the transformed stands could effectively control the occurrence of pine caterpillars in plantations. Consequently the transformations enhanced the function of soil and water conservation. Keywords Pinus tabulaeformis - Monoculture - Transformation - Principles and methods - Assessment CLC number S791.254 - S727.22 Document code A Foundation item: This research was supported by grants from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX3-SW-418), National Natural Science Foundation of China (30100144), and National Key Technologies R & D Program of China (96-007-01-06).Biography: ZENG De-hui (1965-), male, Ph.D. professor in the Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, P. R. ChinaResponsible editor: Zhu Hong
