Chin J Plant Ecol ›› 2019, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (1): 1-15.DOI: 10.17521/cjpe.2018.0091

• Research Articles •     Next Articles

Species richness patterns and resource plant conservation assessments of Rosaceae in China

Dong-Ting ZOU1,Qing-Gang WANG2,Ao LUO1,Zhi-Heng WANG1,*()   

  1. 1 Institute of Ecology and Key Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
    2 College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Organic Farming of Beijing City, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
  • Received:2018-04-18 Accepted:2018-05-29 Online:2019-01-20 Published:2019-04-25
  • Contact: Zhi-Heng WANG
  • Supported by:
    Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China(2017YFA0605101);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31522012);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31470564);the National Natural Science Foundation of China(31621091)

Abstract:

Aims Rosaceae is a widely-distributed family with numerous economic resource plants in China. However, the species richness pattern and the current conservation status of resource plants remain poorly evaluated. Here we aim to identify the economic resource plants of Rosaceae in China, estimate the species richness patterns for all Rosaceae plants combined and for different resource groups and evaluate the relationships between species richness patterns and environmental variables. We also evaluate the current conservation status of economic resource plants of Rosaceae.
Methods We first made the species list of all 914 Rosaceae species in China and identified the species with different economic usages, including edible, ornamental, medicinal plants and fruit germplasm resources. We then collected high-resolution distribution maps of all Rosaceae species, estimated the species richness patterns by overlapping these maps, and identified the diversity hotspots of different species groups. With high-resolution environmental data, we compared the effects of different environmental variables on the species richness and species composition of all Rosaceae species combined and the four main resource groups using generalized linear models (GLM) and redundancy analysis (RDA). Finally, we evaluated the conservation status of Rosaceae with distribution data overlaid by maps of nature reserves of China in ArcGIS.
Important findings 1) The species richness hotspots of Rosaceae in China are mainly located in the mountain areas in the north, east and west of Sichuan basin as well as Hengduan Mountains. 2) Species richness patterns of Rosaceae are mainly determined by humidity factors. 3) Poorly protected species are mainly in Hengduan Mountains, Southeast Yunnan and Xizang, and concentrated in the genus of Rubus.

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Key words: Rosaceae, species richness, humidity, plant resource, plant diversity conservation, natural reserve