Studies On The Acrocarpous Mosses Of Shandong Province, China

Shandong Province, located in China's eastern coastal areas. Its geographical coordinates is between 114°48′-122°43′E and 34°23′-38°24′N, covers an area of 157 000 km2. Shandong Province is situated in the warm temperate zone, belongs to the warm temperate zone monsoon climate. As the geography and environment of this area are very complex, the geographical elements of vegetation flora are extremely various. As one important taxon in Bryophytes, acrocarpous mosses have a series of biological characteristics which have important theoretical significance in the system and evolution of plant. Therefore, the systematic study on Shandong acrocarpous mosses can improve the checklist and provide new information to the flora of Shandong Bryophytes.The thesis is principally based on the outdoors investigation and the specimens collected by auther and her colleagues in Shandong province. Based on the indoor identification of about 2000 specimens of acrocarpous mosses and analysis of related references, 168 species (including subspecies and varieties and so on) in 46 genera of 13 families were identified. Among them, 61 species, 3 genera are new to Shandong province, one species is new to Mainland of China. The characteristics of dominant families and genera in Shandong were also discussed.According to the habitats and ecological environments, the acrocarpous mosses of Shandong province can be divided into four types, including geophytia, petrophytia, xero-petrophytia and epixylophytia. Among them, geophytia and petrophytia are most widely distributed, and only few epixylophytia are found.The acrocarpous mosses-diversity in Shandong is rich and its bryoflora could be divided into 11 geographical elements. North Temperate element is dominant, accounting for 34.52% and next comes East-Asia element, accounting for 16.67%. Endemic to China element accounts for 10.71% and Tropical Asian element account for 11.90%. It is suggested from the above analysis that Temperate element and East-Asia element make up the majority of the acrocarpous mosses flora of Shandong province. It also has a high level endemism and has a related relationship with the acrocarpous mosses flora of subtropical area.The relationships of acrocarpous mosses flora among Shandong province and five selected areas, namely Yunnan province, Hengduan Mountains, Qilian Mountain, Neimenggu and Northeast China were analyzed. The species abundance, dominant generic and species similarity coefficient of these areas were compared. Considering comparison of the acrocarpous mosses species abundance in 6 areas, acrocarpous mosses of Yunnan province, Hengduan Mountains and Neimenggu are abundant and that of Northeast China and Shandong province are poor. Judging form similarity coefficient of genera and species, the acrocarpous mosses of Shandong province holds the closest relationship with Northeast China followed by Hengduan Mountains, Neimenggu and Qilian Mountain, and holds the farthest with Yunnan province.