Studies On Biodiversity Of Bryophytes In Wuyi Mountain, China

Wuyi Mountain is located between Fujian and Jiangxi province in south-eastern China, parallelled to the costline, with ranges direction from North-east to South-west. As the "roof of East China", Huanggangshan is the peak of Wuyi Mountain, with an altitude of 2158.7m. To complement and perfect the plant diversity in East China and provide scientific information for research on relationship between plants and environment, the biodiversity of bryophytes in Wuyi Mountain was inspected in this paper, based on bryophytes’ specimens collected from field and other results from previous studies in Wuyi Mountain. The main conclusions as follows,1. The bryoflora of Wuyi Mountain consists of 734 species (including infraspecific taxa) belonging to 245 genera in 79 families, with four species of hornworts belonging to three genera in one family,235 species of liverworts belonging to 64 genera in 32 families, and 495 species of mosses belonging to 178 genera in 46 families. Among them,146 species,18 genera, and two families are new to Wuyi Mountain.2. The bryophytes is species-rich in Wuyi Mountain. There are five dominant families of liverworts, and these tropical, subtropical properties of large families constitute the body of the dominant families of liverworts in Wuyi Mountain. There are 14 dominant families of mosses, mainly composed of temperate elements, tropical and subtropical elements, with distinct characteristics of the temperate and subtropical convergence. The 19 dominant families, only 24.05% of the total families in this region, accounting for 51.43% of the total genera and 65.35% of the total species, are worthy of dominant families in Wuyi Mountain. With nine species or more considered as dominant genus, there are 17 dominant genera with 226 species of bryophytes in Wuyi Mountain, which account for 30.79% of the total species. Among them, eight genera are liverworts, nine genera are mosses. The results reflect high species diversity of bryophytes in Wuyi Mountain. Only five dominant genera with 16 species or more, which account for 1.63% of the total genera. Whereas, the genera containing few species (fewer than five species) or monotypic genera constitute a huge part of the entire bryoflora. Up to 81.22%.3. The phytogeographical distribution patterns of bryophytes of Wuyi Mountain be classified into 13 areal-types. The East Asian areal-type, accounting for 27.52% of the entire flora, is the most dominant type, followed by North Temperate areal-type (24.40%) and Tropical Asia areal-type (17.87%), respectively. From the climate types, it is mainly composed of tropical and temperate elements; from the geographical location, mainly composed of Asia elements, up to 68.79%. The bryoflora in this region has a strong East Asian property, with a typical tropical origin and Chinese local characteristicsat the same time.4. The analyses on species similarity of bryophytes in internal Wuyi Mountain and relationship with the neighboring regions of the bryoflora show that the internal Wuyi Mountain with high similarity of bryophytes due to close bryophytes distribution, but the species composition changed with different the terrain topography and climate types. The dissimilarity of bryophytes is increasing, with bryophyte species diversity increasing in overall Wuyi Mountain. In addition, the same side of bryophyte species similarity is higher than the opposite side, with the increasing in the number of bryophytes from the west to the east that its species similarity has an increasing tendency. Based on SPSS cluster analysis, it is suggested that the boundary between Lingnan District and Huadong District of ten District system in Wuyi Mountain should be moved north forward.5. Five kinds of bryophyte community types in Wuyi Mountain have been identificated, showing the bryophyte community diversity in Wuyi Mountain, with all bryophyte community types in China. With warm and moist climate, the species of epiphyllous liverworts is rich in Wuyi Mountain, including Radulaceae and Lejeuneaceae as dominant families. Based on specimens collected from field and the results of previous studies there are 45 species of epiphyllous liverworts in Wuyi Mountain, belonging to 12 genera in six femilies. Most of these epiphyllous are not obligate epiphyllous, and are composed of tropical elements and Asia elements.