Bio-ecological Characters And Ex Situ Convervation Of Paphiopedilum Armeniacum S.C. Chen Et F.Y.Liu

Paphiopedilum armeniacum is a native species in Yunnan province of southeastern China with damaged resource situation as a result of land degradation and unlimited commercial collection. The sampling was carried out to investigate the biological and ecological features of P. armeniacum in natural distribution in response to requirement of detail information for in situ and ex situ conservation. Both environmental condition and species compenent of the community in which P. armeniacum present were recorded. The environmental requirements and species diversity of the community were analyzed in relation to the ecological niche of P. armeniacum. Meanwhile, an ex situ conservation experiment was designed to examine the adaption and morphological reaction of P. armeniacum plants to new environmental conditions with two light and nutrition levels. The main results are as follows:(1) The plant of Paphiopedilum armeniacum can mainly be found in shrub community dominated by oak and phodedenran. As an understory species, the plant of P. armeniacum prefers to grow and reproduce on the soil developed from limestone with good drainage and abundant organic material.(2) There are 67 species in the community of the research area.They belongs to 38 genuses. The major family is Orchidaceae (6 spieces), occupys 8.96% of the total species. Other important families are Fagaceae and Compositae. 52.23% of the total species belong to the genuses which have less than 2 species. There are 25 families or genuses have only one species, which occupy 65.79% of the total families. Most species in the community are shrubs and herbage, only few are wood plants. High proportion of families and genuses with single or few species indicate the stage of succession of such community.(3) The variation of species richness and diversity are high within the community in which Paphiopedilum armeniacum involved. The plants of P. armeniacum appear in the community, whatever dominanate species of oak and rhododendron are absent or present,...