3.1 | Richness of taxa
A total of 1,911 seed plants have
been recorded in the Kunlun Mountains, including subspecies and
varieties, which belonged to 397 genera, 75 families, and
32 orders. Gymnosperms accounted
for only 26 of these seed plants, which were further classified into 5
genera, 3 families, and 3 orders.
The remaining seed plants were all
angiosperms.
At the species level, the seed
plants of the KMF comprised 226 woody plants and 1,685 herbaceous
plants, accounting for 11.83% and 88.17% of the total species,
respectively (Figure 2a). Specifically, the woody plants were
represented by 22 trees, 197 shrubs, and 7 lianas; and the herbaceous
plants were represented by 9 herbaceous climbers, 224 annual herbs, and
1,452 perennial herbs. There were
570 species endemic to China, accounting for 29.83% of the total,
including 81 woody plants and 489 herbaceous plants.
At the genus level, the KMF seed
plants were characterized by 39
woody genera, 347
herbaceous genera, and 11 genera
that consists of both woody and herbaceous
species (Figure 2b). Overall, 7 of
these genera (all herbaceous genera) were endemic to
the
Kunlun Mountains, of which 6 were
only distributed in the eastern section. About a third of the plant
species were limited to 15 genera, which consisted of more than 20
species in each genus, and there were 155 genera where each genus
contained only one species.
From the perspective of vegetation
type, the KMF had a relatively low
species diversity, with meadows being the primary type, followed by
shrubs and grasslands; there were very few forests. Therefore, the
biodiversity of KMF varied spatially, with the middle parts of the
Kunlun Mountains having the lowest biodiversity, and the forests having
the highest biodiversity.