Study On Resources And Priority Conservation Of Rare And Endangered Plants In Inner Mongolia

Biodiversity is the material basis for the development of human society.Due to the increasing influence of human activities,climate changes and other reasons,biodiversity is faced with unprecedented crisis.Inner Mongolia is located in the arid area of Central Asia.It is one of the key areas of our country's biodiversity,whose rich and ancient ecosystem and biological categories and complex zonal differentiation have made the protection of biodiversity in this area particularly important.As an important component of biodiversity,rare and endangered plants' reasonable and effective protection has become a hot issue of international attention.In the meantime,relevant studies on rare and endangered plants have provided theoretical basis and methods to the optimized protection of wildlife resources.In this study,we took the data of the Inner Mongolia part in The Catalogue of Rare and Endangered Plants in China,The China Plant Red Book,The National Key Protected Wild Plants List(List No.1),the threatened species in The China Species Red List,the threatened species in The Red List of Chinese Biodiversity – The volume of Higher Plants(2013),The Catalogue of Rare and Endangered Plants in Inner Mongolia and Recorded Illustration of Rare and Endangered Plants in Inner Mongolia as initial data,and performed a series of revision and perfection to the name,Latin name,attribution of families and genera and other problems.Eventually,we confirmed 127 rare and endangered plant species as objects of the study.During our systematic collecting and organizing of the research results and data of different scholars on relevant documents of rare and endangered plants in Inner Mongolia,we also conducted field investigation and specimen collection,and carried out researches and discussions on aspects including the floristic composition and characteristics of rare and endangered plants,basic composition and types of plant resources,level of endangerment and protection priority,protection status and habitat protection red line in Inner Mongolia with the application of floristic analysis,plant resource survey,plant protection priority,hotspot areas and GAP analysis.The research results achieved are as follows:(1)The rare and endangered plants in Inner Mongolia belong to 53 families,103 genera and 127 species in total.Among which,pteridophyte covers 1 species;gymnosperm 3 families 5 genera and 9 species;angiosperm 49 families 97 genera and117 species;East and West Alashan state,Helan Mountain state and Xing'an North State share more distribution of the rare and endangered plants in Inner Mongolia,each taking up to 59 species,46.46% of the total number;vertical distribution pattern presents an unimodal form,with the largest amount of plant species between 1000 and1600 meters;the number of leguminosae,compositae and ranunculaceae species ranks top,35 monotypic genera;as for floristic elements,temperate distribution has the highest proportion,with ancient origin,there are many relic plants,while herb and mesophytes enjoy largest proportion,similar to the floristic characteristics of Inner Mongolia.(2)Rare and endangered plant resources in Inner Mongolia can be classified into5 major categories and 18 small species.Among edible plant resources,there are 16 species of potherbs,8 species of wild fruits,20 species of oil plants,65 species of forage crops,16 species of nectar source plants,12 species of starch plants,5 species of pigment plants,3 species of sweetener plants,22 species of aromatic plants and 65 species of officinal plants.Industrial plant resources contain 18 species of wood plants,16 species of fiber plants,5 species of resin plants,11 species of tannin plants and 5 species of gum plants.There are 13 species of pesticide plants within the agricultural plant resources,while 59 species of afforestation and ornamental plants and 35 species of environmentally improved plants within the ornamental and environmentally improved plant resources.Among all these 18 groups of pant resources,the largest group is forage crops which contains 63 species,accounting for61.9% of the total resource plants,while officinal plants take the second place with 63 species,accounting for 60% of the total resource plants.There are 32 species of plants that have 5 functions or more,accounting for 30.48% of the total resource plants.Rare and endangered forage plants in Inner Mongolia can be divided into 6 grades:superior forage(6 species),good quality forage(4 species),medium quality forage(15 species),low quality forage,inferior forage and able-to-be forage by synthesis evaluation method,among which,there are 25 species of medium quality forage or better than medium quality,accounting for 23.81% of the total resource plants.Furthermore,rare and endangered officinal plants in Inner Mongolia can be divided into 3 grades by analytic hierarchy process,including 36 species of I class officinal plants,20 species of II class and 7 species of III class,which accounts for 57.14%,31.75% and 11.11% of the total resource plants respectively.(3)Based on the evaluation of 127 species of rare and endangered plants in Inner Mongolia,the system of plant priority protection was established in this area.When setting the evaluation index,we make the best of field investigation data,as well as the assessment outcomes for plants across the country using IUCN evaluation system.In addition,taking into account the geographical location and the particularity of the ecological environment,indicators of plant resistance to disaster and indicators of significant impact caused by altitude or other factors in this area have also been enrolled.The assessment result is that there are 2 CR species,13 EN species,37 VU species,44 NT species and 31 LC species,accounting for 1.57%,10.24%,29.13%,34.65% and 24.41% respectively.Among all these species,there are 52 threatened species(including CR,EN and VU),accounting for 40.94%of the total species.The results of the assessment of the priority of protection are that there are 28 species of Class I protected plants,71 species of Class II protected plants,and 28 Class III protected species,accounting for 22.05%,55.91% and 22.05% of total species assessed respectively;there are some differences between the assessment results of some species and Red List of Biodiversity of China: Higher Plants(2013)and List of Rare and Endangered Protected Plants of Inner Mongolia(1989)in terms of endangered grade and protection class because of different assessment methods.Someplant species whose endangered grade and protection class are not embodied in previously published protection lists obtained higher endangered grade and protection class in this assessment.(4)Prioritized,secondary and ordinary protection counties are identified by calculating accumulative protection efficiency and accumulative protection area to evaluate and screen out counties with important species with hot spots and GAP analytical method as the theoretical basis.According to the principles of conservation biology and specific distribution of important species,the buffer areas of different levels for key protections areas for key plants are delimited on the basis of their biotype,distribution range and threatened degree and in consideration of different required minimum living area of plant species with different attributes.The combination of the two leads to the red-line of habitat protection for rare and endangered plants in Inner Mongolia;among 127 species of red-line protected plants,81 have been under the protection of natural reserves at different levels,taking up63.78% of total red-line protected plants;the overall red-line protected area for I rare and endangered plants of Inner Mongolia is 506,800 km2,accounting for 42.84% of the total area of Inner Mongolia;the discussion about the approaches to delimit red-line for the habitat protection of rare and endangered plants in Inner Mongolia serves as a reference to delimit warning red-line for ecological safety.It is recommended to protect red-line protected plants that are unprotected by natural reserves at different levels in Inner Mongolia,and further strengthening the investigation of the autonomous region to nationwide red-line protected plants,to increase precision and completeness of data,to further evaluate the effectiveness of in situ conservation of red-line key plants on the basis of the improvement of background data,to quantize efficiency indexes for in situ conservation,to study plants not effectively protected,and to increase the efficiency of the protection of red-line plants.