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.