Abstract:Camellia luteoflora is mainly distributed in Chishui Alsophila National Nature Reserve. Recent studies found that the C. luteoflora population was in rapid decline. However, the mechanism of the species' endangerment is unclear at present. Niche and interspecific association can be used to understand the ability of species to use resources and adapt to the environment, as well as the cooperation and competition between species, and can objectively reflect the stability of community structure at present stage. The natural regeneration of C. luteoflora is closely related to the interaction between its associated species and the environment. It is of great significance to explore the stability of the C. luteoflora community and understand the interspecies relationship by studying the population niche and the association between C. luteoflora and the accompanying species. The purpose of this study is to explore the community stability through the niche of C. luteoflora population and the association between its associated species, so as to provide theoretical reference for species conservation and management of C. luteoflora. In this study, a typical plot survey was used to investigate eight concentrated distribution sample plots of C. luteoflora. By calculating important values, the top 15 species were selected as the dominant woody species of the C. luteoflora community, and then analyzed the species niche and interspecific association by calculating indexes such as niche width (BS and BL), niche similarity ratio (Cik), niche overlap value (Oik), variance ratio (VR), statistic (W), the Chi-square test (χ2), interspecific association coefficient (AC), and co-occurrence percentage (PC). The results showed that the important value and niche width of C. luteoflora were the highest in 63 woody species. There were 14 species pairs of C. luteoflora with other dominant species, including two species pairs with Cik ≥ 0.50 and 3 species pairs with Oik ≥ 0.50, and the niche similarity ratio and niche overlap value of dominant species were low. The overall connectivity revealed a non-significantly negative relationship between most of the dominant species pairs in C. luteoflora community. The results of three methods (the Chi-square test, interspecific association coefficient, and co-occurrence percentage) indicated that there was no significant association among most species pairs, reflecting a weak association among the various species pairs, and most of the species showed an independent distribution pattern. Additionally, three tests of interspecific association (χ2, AC, PC) showed a weak correlation between C. luteoflora and 14 species. Furthermore, there was a significantly positive correlation between interspecific association coefficient and niche similarity ratio, interspecific association coefficient and niche overlap value, co-occurrence percentage and niche similarity ratio, co-occurrence percentage and niche overlap value. It indicated that when the species pairs showed extremely significantly positive associations, the niche overlap value was large, while when the species pairs showed extremely significantly negative associations, the niche overlap value was small. Our results suggest that the interspecific correlation between C. luteoflora and the dominant companion species was weak, the dominant species showed a relatively independent distribution pattern, and the stability of the C. luteoflora community was weak.