BEST-Bawangling
Mt. Bawangling (海南霸王岭)
Bawangling is located in Hainan Island, South China (18°52′-19°12′ N, 108°53′-109°20′ E). Bawangling covers one of the largest areas of tropical rain forests in China. It is ca. 500 km2 with an elevation range of ca. 100–1654 m a.s.l. The mean annual air temperature varies from 23.6°C (ca. 100 m a.s.l.) to 16.7°C (ca. 1400 m a.s.l.). The precipitation is seasonal distributed, with a rainy season between May to October and a dry season between November to April.
Vegetation
Topographic and climatic variations in Bawangling result in a vertical zonation of major forest types. The vegetation types in the Bawangling region from low to high altitudes are deciduous monsoon forest (0- 500 m a.s.l.), tropical lowland rain forest (0–700 m a.s.l), tropical conifers forest (500–700 m a.s.l), tropical montane rain forest (800–1300 m a.s.l), tropical montane evergreen forest (1200–1400 m a.s.l) and tropical dwarf forest (above 1300 m a.s.l).
Flora
The flora of Bawangling is very rich, harboring > 2,213 vascular plant species, belonging to 967 genera and 220 families.
Fauna
Coming soon.
Research sites of BEST network
The elevational transect of our study spans ~1,200 m in elevation from 265 to 1,400 m and consists of 12 sites, each with a 20×20m permanent sampling plot, all in old growth forest. Within each plot, all woody stems with ≥ 1 cm DBH were tagged and identified to species. There were 4249 individuals with DBH ≥ 1 cm recorded, belonging to 369 woody plant species.
Principal Investigator
Yi Ding (丁易): dingyi@caf.ac.cn
Lan Liu (刘兰): liulan_sh@qq.com
Research Team:
Dr. Wenxing Long (Hainan University)
Xiaoran Wang (East China Normal University)
Jian Zhang (East China Normal University)
Selected Publications
Ding, Y., Liu, G., Zang, R., Zhang, J., Lu, X., Huang, J., 2016. Distribution of vascular epiphytes along a tropical elevational gradient: disentangling abiotic and biotic determinants. Scientific Reports 6, 1-11.
Ding, Y., Zang, R., Letcher, S.G., Liu, S., He, F., 2012. Disturbance regime changes the trait distribution, phylogenetic structure and community assembly of tropical rain forests. Oikos 121, 1263-1270.
Ding, Y., Zang, R., Lu, X., Huang, J., Xu, Y., 2019. The effect of environmental filtering on variation in functional diversity along a tropical elevational gradient. Journal of Vegetation Science 30, 973-983.
Long, W., Ding, Y., Zang, R., Yang, M., Chen, S., 2011. Environmental characteristics of tropical cloud forests in the rainy season in Bawangling National Nature Reserve on Hainan Island, South China. Chinese Journal of Plant Ecology 35, 137-146.
Site Support
This site has been supported by:
Bawangling National Nature Reserve
National Natural Science Foundation of China
Hainan University
East China Normal University