Biodiv Sci ›› 2022, Vol. 30 ›› Issue (11): 22332.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2022332

• Data Paper • Previous Articles     Next Articles

A dataset on the diversity of forest vascular epiphytes in China

Zixiao Dai1,2, Guoke Chen2, Naili Zhang1,3,*(), Keping Ma2   

  1. 1. Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of Ministry of Education, Beijing Foestry University, Beijing 100083
    2. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093
    3. Ecological Observation and Research Station of Heilongjiang Sanjiang Plain Wetlands, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang 518000
  • Received:2022-06-15 Accepted:2022-09-15 Online:2022-11-20 Published:2022-11-15
  • Contact: Naili Zhang

Abstract:

Vascular epiphytes are abundant in tropical and subtropical forest ecosystems. Vascular epiphytes are often neglected in biodiversity surveys owing to the challenges they pose for investigators. There is no comprehensive national checklist of vascular epiphyte species in China so far. In this study, we reviewed the literature on Chinese vascular epiphytes from 1982 to 2022 and obtained the relevant information for epiphytes. We checked and corrected this information according to the data of Species 2000 China Node. Finally, we obtained the taxonomic and distribution information of 1,739 species of vascular epiphytes, belonging to 246 genera and 49 families. As the first national checklist of Chinese vascular epiphytes, this checklist can provide important data for forest biodiversity conservation, as well as the study of evolutionary biology, biogeography and macroecology, and other life science disciplines.

Key words: Chinese forest, geographic distribution, vascular epiphytes, species diversity, species checklist