Rare plant species of Tunkinskii National Park: New sites, state of the art and prospects of protection

The list of rare plants conserved in the Tunkinskii National Park includes 44 species. Exact locations and brief characteristisc of habitats are presented for these species. The sites of rare species have been compared with the existing functional zones of the park. The protection of rare plants is quite effective.     

河南珍稀濒危保护植物的资源学研究

河南省分布有40种国家重点珍稀保护植物和98种省级重点珍稀保护植物;依据药用、观赏、珍贵木材、芳香、油料、栲胶等利用价值将它们分类,阐述了各类的代表植物的利用价值;对河南珍稀保护植物的保护措施和开发利用提出建议。     

The importance of rare species: a trait‐based assessment of rare species contributions to functional diversity and possible ecosystem function in tall‐grass prairies

The majority of species in ecosystems are rare, but the ecosystem consequences of losing rare species are poorly known. To understand how rare species may influence ecosystem functioning, this study quantifies the contribution of species based on their relative level of rarity to community functional diversity using a trait‐based approach. Given that rarity can be defined in several different ways, we use four different definitions of rarity: abundance (mean and maximum), geographic range, and habitat specificity. We find that rarer species contribute to functional diversity when rarity is defined by maximum abundance, geographic range, and habitat specificity. However, rarer species are functionally redundant when rarity is defined by mean abundance. Furthermore, when using abundance‐weighted analyses, we find that rare species typically contribute significantly less to functional diversity than common species due to their low abundances. These results suggest that rare species have the potential to play an important role in ecosystem functioning, either by offering novel contributions to functional diversity or via functional redundancy depending on how rare species are defined. Yet, these contributions are likely to be greatest if the abundance of rare species increases due to environmental change. We argue that given the paucity of data on rare species, understanding the contribution of rare species to community functional diversity is an important first step to understanding the potential role of rare species in ecosystem functioning.     

Loss of phylogenetic and functional originalities of woody cerrado species in simulated extinction scenarios

Originality measures how different a given species is from all other co‐occurring species regarding either their phylogenetic history or functional traits. Since it is important to preserve the various aspects of diversity and original species carry more phylogenetic or functional information, originality may be used to assign conservation priorities. Our goal was to evaluate the relationships between phylogenetic and functional originalities, and their simulated losses under extinction scenarios based on abundance, fire tolerance and habitat preference. We placed 100 plots in a cerrado reserve located in central Brazil, sampled all woody plants species within the plots, measured 14 functional traits and measured fire history. We assembled a phylogenetic tree and a functional dendrogram, with which we calculated the originalities. Phylogenetic‐ and functional‐based originalities were correlated. However, the loss of functional originality was different from random extinctions on the abundance and fire tolerance scenarios, whereas the loss of phylogenetic originality was not. When compared with phylogenetic originality, functional originality brought more information to be used in conservation strategies because it was sensitive to differences in species abundance and fire tolerance. Thus, the extinction of rare or fire‐sensitive species would result in important functional changes due to loss of distinctive traits.     

Rare species in communities of tropical insect herbivores: pondering the mystery of singletons

The host specificity, taxonomic composition and feeding guild of rare species were studied in communities of herbivorous insects in New Guinea. Leaf‐chewing and sap‐sucking insects (Orthoptera, Phasmatodea, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Hemiptera‐Auchenorrhyncha) were sampled from 30 species of trees and shrubs (15 spp. of Ficus, Moraceae, six spp. of Macaranga and nine species of other Euphorbiaceae) in a lowland rain forest. Feeding trials were performed with all leaf‐chewers in order to exclude transient species. Overall, the sampling produced 80 062 individuals of 1050 species. The species accumulation curve did not attain an asymptote, despite 950 person‐days of sampling. Rare species, defined as those found as single individuals, remained numerous even in large samples and after the exclusion of transient, non‐feeding species. There was no difference among plant species in the proportion of rare species in their herbivore communities, which was, on average, 45%. Likewise, various herbivore guilds and taxa had all very similar proportions of rare and common species. There was also no difference between rare and common species in their host specificity. Both highly specialised species and generalists, feeding on numerous plants, contributed to the singleton records on particular plant species. Predominantly, a species was rare on a particular host whilst more common on other, often related, host species, or relatively rare on numerous other host plants, so that its aggregate population was high. Both cases are an example of the “mass effect”, since it is probable that such rare species were dependent on a constant influx of immigrants from the other host plants. These other plants were found particularly often among congeneric plants, less so among confamilial plants from different genera and least frequently among plants from different families. There were also 278 very rare species, found as one individual on a single plant species only. Their host specificity could not be assessed; they might have been either very rare specialists, or species feeding also on other plants, those that were not studied. The former possibility is unlikely since monophagous species, collected as singletons at the present sampling effort, would have existed at an extremely low population density, less than 1 individual per 10 ha of the forest.     

Endemics and their common congener plant species on an East Mediterranean island: a comparative functional trait approach

Understanding evolution and ecology of endemic plants is of great importance for conservation of those rare and endangered species. Pairwise comparisons of plant functional traits could be an adequate method to get insights in evolutionary and ecological processes. We examined whether morphological traits representing competitive ability and habitat specificity differ between endemics and common plants. Therefore, we performed pairwise comparison analyses of 9 plant functional traits in 36 congeneric pairs of endemics and their common congeners on the East Mediterranean island of Cyprus, i.e., the first such study conducted on a Mediterranean island. We found that endemic species prefer higher elevations and more extreme habitats. Endemics were smaller and they had smaller flowers than their common congeners. Common species had higher chromosome numbers than endemic ones. Endemic and common species showed no significant differences in canopy height, inflorescence height, leaf length and width, and flowering period. Our study showed that the situation on a large oceanic island does not differ from results in mainland research areas.     

南亚热带森林常见种和偶见种的功能多样性特征

群落特征可能取决于物种在功能实体功能特征的独特组合（FE）中的分布。了解这些分布是保护生物多样性和维持生态系统功能的基础。鼎湖山南亚热带常绿阔叶林群落物种丰富,根据物种的多度来区分常见种（每hm²超过一个个体）和偶见种（每hm²少于一个个体）。基于功能实体,分别计算功能实体数量、功能冗余度、功能脆弱度和功能过度冗余度来描述每个样方中常见种和偶见种的功能多样性。采用Wilcoxon检验检测常见种和偶见种功能性状的差异,通过线性回归分析常见种和偶见种的功能多样性与物种数量的关系,采用冗余分析（RDA）影响常见种和偶见种的功能多样性的环境因子。研究结果表明：（1）鼎湖山南亚热带常绿阔叶林群落中功能性状在常见种和偶见种间差异显著。（2）群落中数量较低的偶见种保持着较高比例的功能实体数量。功能实体数量、功能冗余度与常见种和偶见种数量显著正相关,功能过度冗余度与偶见种数量显著正相关,功能脆弱度与常见种和偶见种的物种数量呈显著负相关。（3）海拔是影响常见种功能多样性最关键的地形因子,凹凸度是影响偶见种功能多样性最关键的地形因子。土壤含水量是影响常见种功能多样性最关键的土壤因子,速效钾是影响偶见种功能多样性最关键的环境因子。研究结果表明,尽管物种丰富的热带森林具有较高的功能冗余,但其提供的保险效应不能抵消生态系统的功能脆弱性。减少具有独特功能实体和偶见种的损失是避免热带森林生态系统功能损失的有效和必要的方法。     

The functional importance of rare and dominant species in a Neotropical forest bird community

Bird communities in Tropical forests have high rate of rare species, but only recently some studies suggested their disproportional role for the overall functional diversity. We investigated data from bird communities monitored annually using point counts over ten years in Iguassu National Park, that is a large and protected area in the southern portion of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. We aimed (1) to determine the rare and dominant species in the community based on their abundance over time; (2) to evaluate the impact of each class of rarity on the overall functional volume of the community; (3) to investigate the pattern of occupancy of the trait space filled by each dominance class, and (4) to assess the disparity in functional trait composition between classes of rarity. We defined dominant, intermediate, and rare species in communities using cluster analysis and data of relative abundance of species in five sections of 1-km in the forest interior. The number of clusters was defined in accordance with the silhouette criterion measures of cohesion and separation that range from −1 to 1, with values > 0.5 indicating high-quality clusters. Among total 138 bird species recorded, 107 were rare, 26 intermediates, and 5 dominants. Our data corroborate a functional disproportional importance of rare bird species in the community considering the functional space (FRic), but functional dispersion (FDis) was not significantly different between the rare and intermediate species. In fact, there is a large overlap of the functional volume occupied by rare in relation to dominant/intermediate species. The niche space occupied by rare species covers most of the space occupied by intermediate and dominant species. The low representativeness of functional turnover indicates that few functions are unique to the classes of higher dominance. Our data suggest the importance of rare bird species to the overall functional diversity but also highlights the potential use of dominants/intermediates species as indicators to select important forests areas for conservation, as certain forest fragments. Through these most abundant species it would be possible to assess which functions are heaviest in abundance, becoming core functions, in the context of each independent forest fragment.     

Functional groups of rare plants differ in levels of imperilment

Comparative examination of a large sample of plant species can reveal important aspects of life history that influence the ecology and distribution of taxa and their vulnerability to local extinction. We investigated whether functional groups of 71 rare plant species with contrasting life history traits differed in terms of population losses over time, regional range contraction, and range-wide levels of imperilment. Using town-level occurrence data from herbaria and Natural Heritage Program databases, we characterized species' extents of occurrence as α-hulls encompassing the centroids of New England towns that contained well-documented populations of these rare taxa. Family affiliation was used as a covariate in analyses to reduce phylogenetic bias. Disparate functional groups of plants differed both in proportions of populations lost and declines in range areas over time, with insect-pollinated taxa, upland (vs. wetland) taxa, species with localized seed dispersal modes, and taxa reaching their northern range boundary in New England significantly more imperiled than other functional groups. These techniques permit a broad comparative assessment of the distribution of large numbers of plant taxa, so that we can identify several functional groups that warrant more concerted conservation attention.     

湖南省珍稀植物观赏价值及应用前景探讨

湖南省地处亚热带,水热条件好,地形复杂,蕴藏的园林植物有１７３８种以上,其中珍稀植物７１种。在评价这些珍稀植物的观赏特性后,阐述了它们在园林中的应用现状,并就这些珍稀植物在城镇绿化中的应用前景提出探讨。     

湖北万朝山自然保护区珍稀濒危植物优先保护定量研究

该研究采用样线法和样地法,对湖北万朝山自然保护区的珍稀濒危保护植物资源进行了调查,并运用濒危系数、遗传价值系数和物种价值系数,计算出综合评价值,对其优先保护顺序进行了定量分析。结果表明:保护区内共有珍稀濒危保护植物47种,隶属于34科44属;根据综合评价值对珍稀濒危保护植物物种进行优先保护评价排序,其中Ⅰ级优先保护物种有9种,Ⅱ级优先保护物种有23种,Ⅲ级优先保护物种有12种,Ⅳ级优先保护有物种3种。通过分析珍稀濒危保护植物分布特征,发现该保护区珍稀濒危植物分布相对集中,并且在900~1 600 m海拔段,珍稀濒危保护植物物种和数量分布最多。该研究结果更加真实有效地为该保护区管理部门制定该地区珍稀濒危植物保护计划提供了科学依据,使其更加高效有力地指导本保护区的保护工作。     

Population dependence in the interactions with neighbors for pollination: A field experiment with Taraxacum officinale

PREMISE OF THE STUDY. The fitness of plants depends on their immediate biotic and abiotic environmental surroundings. The floral neighborhood of individual plants is part of this immediate environment and affects the frequency and behavior of their pollinators. However, the interactions among plants for pollination might differ among populations because populations differ in floral densities and pollinator assemblages. Despite that, manipulative experiments of the floral neighborhood in different populations with a specific focus on pollinator behavior are still rare. METHODS. We introduced mixtures of two species (Salvia farinacae and Tagetes bonanza) in two populations of Taraxacum officinale and examined their effect on pollinators' foraging behavior on Taraxacum. KEY RESULTS. The effects of the heterospecific neighborhood differed among pollinator groups and between the two populations. Only honeybees consistently preferred both the most diverse (containing three species) and completely pure patches of Taraxacum in both populations. We found a strong and positive effect of patch diversity on visitation to Taraxacum in one population, whereas in the other population either no effect or a negative effect of plant diversity occurred, which we attribute to differences between populations in the ratio of pollinators to inflorescences. Pollinator visitation consistently increased with local Taraxacum density in both populations. CONCLUSIONS. Our study shows that a similar local neighborhood can differentially affect the frequency and foraging behavior of pollinators, even in closely situated populations. Experimental studies conducted in several populations would contribute to determine which factors drive the variation in pollination interactions among populations.     

浙江丽水地区珍稀濒危植物区系研究与保护

浙江丽水地区有珍稀濒危植物 42种 ,隶属于 3 7属 2 5科。其中国家二级珍稀濒危植物 1 8种 ,三级珍稀濒危植物 2 4种 ,大致可分划为 1 0个分布类型 5个变型 ,以木本植物占优势 ,中国特有属、单型属较多。本文根据丽水珍稀濒危植物的现状提出了一些具体的保护措施。     

The spatial variation in ant species composition and functional groups across the Subantarctic-Patagonian transition zone

The role of ecotones in the maintenance of species diversity is rather controversial; they may represent either biodiversity hotspots with unique and rare forms, or be transitional areas that hold marginal populations of species. We analyse the taxonomic and functional composition of ant species assemblages across the Subantarctic-Patagonian transition to evaluate the role that transitional shrublands may play in the maintenance of the taxonomic and functional differentiation. We collected ants using 450 pitfall traps within a ~150 × 150 km area. Species were classified into functional groups in relation to stress and disturbance, and in foraging groups according to their foraging behavior. An indicator value for each species in each habitat was calculated. The steppes and the forests strongly differed in ant species and functional composition. Climatic effects combined with structural components of plant environment explained about 23–27 % of the variation in ant composition. The shrublands did not show a distinctive fauna, and show greater similarity in ant species composition and in the proportional occupancy of functional groups to the steppes than to the forests. They harbor neither rare nor indicator species, except for Lasiophanes valdiviensis, and thus this reinforces the idea that they are not a habitat source of species, but an area of encounter between two distinct forest- and steppe- ant faunas, where a high number of local distributional limits of ant species overlap.     

Widespread functional android in Mercurialis annua L. (Euphorbiaceae)

The widespread coexistence of male and monoecious (cosexual) plants in Spanish, Portuguese and Moroccan populations of Mercurialis annua , an annual wind-pollinated ruderal, represents an important case of functional androdioecy, a rare breeding system in plants and animals. In M. annua , both males and cosexes disperse fully competent pollen. Quantitative gender varies discontinuously between males and cosexes, with males producing a mean of 6.09 times as much pollen as cosexes. It appears that gender is determined by a simple developmental switch, with male and cosexual inflorescences differing markedly in morphology: staminate flowers are borne on erect peduncles in males and in tight spiral clusters around a subsessile pistillate flower in cosexes. Males do not differ from cosexes in their biomass, but they are significantly taller, principally as a result of their greater internode lengths. The cosexual inflorescence is strongly protogynous so that outcrossing is favoured in dense stands, but seed-set is assured in cosexes isolated from prospective mates because of their ability to self-fertilize. Males typically occur at frequencies of less than about 30% in androdioecious populations, in accordance with theoretical predictions for functional androdioecy. In the genus Mercurialis , dioecy is the ancestral condition and monoecy and androdioecy, which occur in polyploid populations of M. annua , are derived. I argue here that androdioecy is most likely to evolve in plants (1) from dioecy, (2) in wind-pollinated species, and (3) in species with a colonizing habit. These predictions are also consistent with the limited published data available for other species.     

Plant Size-dependent Escaping Behavior of Gregarious Nymphs of the Desert Locust, Schistocerca gregaria

The present study involves the tracking of marching bands of more than 300,000 gregarious nymphs of the desert locust, Schistocerca gregaria, to examine shelter plant preference and how species and size of shelter plants and nymphal group sizes jointly influence the escaping behavior of 4th- and 5th-instar gregarious nymphs. Field observations are conducted during daytime and night-time in the Sahara Desert in Mauritania. Three dominant plant species have been identified at the survey site: Hyoscyamus muticus, Panicum turgidum, and Nucularia perrini. The smallest mean plant size among the three plant species is H. muticus. Gregarious nymphs perch on all the three plant species irrespective of time, and form various sizes of groups ranging from <10 to >10,000 nymphs. Groups of gregarious locusts perching on the plants show either escaping or sheltering behavior in response to an approaching observer. Percentages of nymphal groups showing escaping behavior for H. muticus, P. turgidum and N. perrini are 96.4, 47.6 and 19.5 %, respectively. Defensive behavior is not affected by nymphal group size but by species and size of shelter plants. Nymphal groups tend to show escaping behavior when their perching plants are relatively small. No groups escape from their perching plants during night. These results might indicate that gregarious nymphs do not have a strong shelter plant preference and change their defensive behavior depending on species and size of sheltering plants and light conditions.     

江苏省珍稀濒危保护植物资源及其园林应用前景

珍稀濒危保护植物是人类重要的植物资源之一,江苏地处暖温带和亚热带的过渡地带,自然条件优越,植物种类多样,蕴含着丰富的珍稀濒危保护植物。文章调查整理出78种江苏省珍稀濒危保护植物,隶属40科65属,其中本省自然分布的有21种,从其他省份引种栽培的有57种。为了能促进江苏省珍稀濒危保护植物在园林绿化中的应用,分别从江苏省珍稀濒危保护植物的概况、观赏价值、园林应用现状以及在园林中的应用前景等方面进行论述,以期为绿化工作者提供参考。     

甘肃白水江国家级自然保护区珍稀植物的垂直分布及其保护

白水江自然保护区有各类珍稀濒危植物104种,占该区总种数的5.28%。其中划归《国家重点保护野生植物名录(第一批)》的有20种,划归《中国珍稀濒危保护植物名录》的有37种,划归《国家珍贵树种名录》的有18种。该区在整个海拔梯度上均有珍稀植物分布,但很不均匀。根据珍稀植物物种丰富度的高低,大体可分为“极丰富段”“较丰富段”“丰富段”“稀少段”4段。不同类型的珍稀植物的垂直分布也有差异。根据白水江珍稀濒危植物的垂直分布格局和保护现状提出了几点建议。     

江西庐山国家级自然保护区珍稀濒危植物优先保护定量研究

为制定江西庐山国家级自然保护区珍稀濒危植物的保护策略,采用濒危系数、遗传系数及物种价值系数等评价指标对58种珍稀植物的濒危程度和优先保护顺序进行评估。结果表明,自然保护区珍稀植物的综合评价值(VS)为0.153～0.742,濒危等级为安全的11种,占该区珍稀保护植物总数的19%;稀有的28种(48%);渐危的18种(31%);濒危的1种(2%)。优先保护顺序为Ⅰ级的8种,占该区珍稀保护植物总数的14%,急需保护;Ⅱ级的22种(38%),需要保护;Ⅲ级的23种(40%),可以一般保护;IV级的5种(8%),较为安全。生境破坏和人为干扰是该区珍稀植物保护面临的主要威胁。     

神农架地区珍稀植物沿河岸带的分布格局及其保护意义

在神农架香溪河流域从源头到河口的不同海拔高度沿河岸带共设置 4 0个与河流方向平行的10 0m× 10m的样带 ,进行了植物群落学调查研究 .结果表明 ,沿河岸带分布有珍稀植物 14种 ,占神农架地区珍稀植物总数的 4 2 .4 % .这些珍稀物种主要分布在海拔 12 0 0～ 180 0m山地常绿阔叶落叶阔叶混交林带 ,珍稀植物种类的物种丰富度在中等海拔高度上最大 .珍稀植物的种类可划分为低海拔、中等海拔和高海拔 3组 .针对珍稀植物的分布特点 ,明确指出应重视河岸带在生物多样性、尤其是珍稀物种保护方面的重要作用 .