We surveyed the vegetation of an ecological landscape preservation area (legally protected conservation areas or national parks) and the surrounding areas of Mt. Cheonggye, Republic of Korea, to explore the conservation implications for preservation areas and surrounding transition areas. We calculated diversity indices to identify the properties of the preservation and surrounding areas that are relevant to conservation efforts. We then compared the plant community composition between the areas using field and quadrat surveys in the preservation and surrounding areas. The cover of the dominant species in all tree and herb layers was markedly higher in the preservation area than in the peripheral zones. The species richness indices were significantly higher in the preservation area than in the peripheral zones. Ordination using detrended canonical correspondence analyses showed that the cover of the dominant tree species and rocks could explain the distribution of plant species in the Cartesian space of the ordination. Our results demonstrate that physiognomically designated protected areas match well with ecological data based on diversity indices and ordination analyses and that disturbances in the areas surrounding the ecological landscape of preservation areas can have considerable impacts on plant diversity indices. Hence, the preservation and management of surrounding areas are essential conservation elements for protecting the entire ecological landscape of preservation areas.

Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
    2.1. Study site
    2.2. Vegetation sampling
    2.3. Species diversity indices
    2.4. Ordination
    2.5. Statistical analyses
3. Results
    3.1. Characteristics of vegetation
    3.2. Diversity indices comparison of the PA andSA
    3.3. Relationship between vegetation structureand environmental factors
4. Discussion
    4.1. Vegetation of the PA and SA
    4.2. Diversity indices in the PA and SA
    4.3. Impacts by exotic plants
    4.4. Differences in species distribution in the PAand SAs from ordination analyses
    4.5. Implications of ecological data for legaldesignation of the PA in urban forests
5. Conclusions
REFERENCES

• Kee Dae Kim(Department of Environmental Education, Korea National University of Education) Corresponding Author