Tree species composition and diversity of tropical mountain cloud forest in the Yunnan, southwestern China

Abstract

Species composition, physiognomy, and plant diversity of the less known cloud forests in Yunnan were studied based on data collected from 35 sample plots at seven sites. In floristic composition, the cloud forests are mainly comprised of Fagaceae, Ericaceae, Vacciniaceae, Aceraceae, Magnoliaceae, Theaceae, Aquifoliaceae, Illiciaceae, Lauraceae, and Rosaceae. Physiognomically, the forests are dominated by tree and shrub species. Lianas are rare in the forests. The plants with microphyllous or nanophyllous leaves comprise 44.32-63.46% of the total species, and plants with an entire leaf margin account for more than 50% of the tree and shrub species. There are few tree and shrub species with a drip tip leaf apex and papery leaves. Evergreen species make up more than 75% of the total tree and shrub species. In a 2,500 m 2 sampling area, the number of vascular species ranged between 57 and 110; Simpson's diversity index ranged from 0.7719 to 0.9544, Shannon-Winner's diversity index from 1.8251 to 3.2905, and Pielou's evenness index from 0.5836 to 0.8982 for trees. The cloud forests in Yunnan are physiognomically similar to the tropical cloud forests in America and Southeast Asia. They very much resemble the mountain dwarf mossy forest in Hainan Island, southeastern China, and the Mountain ericaceous forests in the Malay Peninsula. The cloud forests in Yunnan are considered to be developed, as are the tropical upper montane cloud forests in Asia.

Species Richness and Biomass of Epiphytic Vegetation in a Tropical Montane Forest in Western Panama

“…Unfortunately, TMCFs are one of the most threatened ecosystems worldwide because of landuse pressure and global climate change (Shi & Zhu, 2008;Zotz & Bader, 2009). In turn, resulting changes in epiphytic biomass and composition are likely to cause cascading effects on forest structure and functioning, with potentially detrimental impacts on ecosystem services.…”

Forest biodiversity assessment in Peruvian Andean Montane cloud forest

“…Although Lauraceae family are either a dominant or co-domintant family in many relatively well preserved cloud forests around the world: in China (Lü et al 2010, Shi andZhu 2009), Philipines (Penafiel 1994), Meso-america (Nadkarni et al 1995), Ecuador (Sarmiento 1993) and Malasia (Kitayama 1994). In the studied forest, Lauraceae is not the dominant family, other families such as Sabiaceae being more abundant.…”

“…The stand stature values (maximum height of 10 to 18 m in the analysed forest, Table 4) Furthermore, due to the frequency of cloud contact (Bruijnzeel and Veneklaas 1998), the stature of the vegetation in cloud forests is reduced (Foster 2001;Hamilton et al 1994;Stadmuller 1987), ranging from 5 -10 m in the tropical montane cloud forest in Yunnan (Shi andZhu 2009), to 15 m (GomezPeralta et al 2008) in central Peru. However, these observations conflict with those reported in Costa Rica (Oosterhoorn and Kappelle 2000) where heights of 30-50 m were recorded.…”

Geographic analysis of Red List Rhododendron (Ericaceae) taxa by country of origin identifies priorities for ex situ conservation

“…Rhododendrons grow in swamps, meadows, grasslands, on mountainsides, on rocks and cliffs, and in ravines and river valleys (Cox & Hutchison 2008, Gibbs et al 2011, Argent 2015. Many taxa are forest species, either trees or shrubs, and can be either a major or dominant component of the forest (Maren & Vetaas 2007, Shi & Zhu 2009, Bharali et al 2011, Paudel et al 2012. Some species form pure stands (Paudel et al 2012, Ranjitkar et al 2014 or are keystone species (Singh et al 2009, Baird et al 2014, Bharali et al 2014.…”