Distribution, congruence, and hotspots of higher plants in China.

Lina Zhao,Huiyuan Liu,Haining Qin,Jinya Li

doi:10.1038/srep19080

Abstract

Identifying biodiversity hotspots has become a central issue in setting up priority protection areas, especially as financial resources for biological diversity conservation are limited. Taking China’s Higher Plants Red List (CHPRL), including Bryophytes, Ferns, Gymnosperms, Angiosperms, as the data source, we analyzed the geographic patterns of species richness, endemism, and endangerment via data processing at a fine grid-scale with an average edge length of 30 km based on three aspects of richness information: species richness, endemic species richness, and threatened species richness. We sought to test the accuracy of hotspots used in identifying conservation priorities with regard to higher plants. Next, we tested the congruence of the three aspects and made a comparison of the similarities and differences between the hotspots described in this paper and those in previous studies. We found that over 90% of threatened species in China are concentrated. While a high spatial congruence is observed among the three measures, there is a low congruence between two different sets of hotspots. Our results suggest that biodiversity information should be considered when identifying biological hotspots. Other factors, such as scales, should be included as well to develop biodiversity conservation plans in accordance with the region’s specific conditions.

Highlights

Identifying biodiversity hotspots has become a central issue in setting up priority protection areas, especially as financial resources for biological diversity conservation are limited
Species richness increases from north to south (Fig. 1), and the entire higher plant richness and endemic species distribution patterns show a unimodal distribution with a peak at latitudes of 29°–31° (Fig. 2), according to which the areas with the most abundant species diversity and the areas with the highest degree of endemism are mainly concentrated in the southwest region
In many studies that focus on the number of endemic species, this area is identified as a hotspot for the analysis of the world’s species[2,41]

Summary

Introduction

Identifying biodiversity hotspots has become a central issue in setting up priority protection areas, especially as financial resources for biological diversity conservation are limited. In addition to methods based on traditional species richness spatial analysis, evolutionary diversity and the evolution of species have received considerable attention as a means of identifying biodiversity hotspots in recent years due to a focus on long-term information on the evolution of different species[8,9,10,11,12] Despite this interest, analysis of species’ broad-scale spatial distribution patterns based on a localized database and a distribution range geodatabase is the central issue in much macro-ecology and conservation biology research, and traditional methods of determining hotspots based on species spatial distribution patterns have not been abandoned. Limited to a specific region, specific habitat range, or specific taxon, or the scales used were relatively coarse; these studies do not offer a complete picture of China’s plant diversity[35,36,37,38,39]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion