BEST-Qinling
Mt. Qinling (秦岭)
The Qinling Mountains, are a major east–west mountain range mainly in southern Shaanxi Province, China. The Qinling Mountains provide a natural geographical boundary between South and North China. The highest mountain is Mount Taibai at 3767 m a. s. l. The climate is transitional from subtropical to temperate, with annual precipitation at about 850 to 950 mm.
Vegetation and Flora
The vegetations show an obvious vertical distribution zone, including deciduous broad-leaved forest, coniferous and broad-leaved mixed forest, dark coniferous forest, bright coniferous forest and alpine shrub meadow.
There are 3800 plant species and 2,931 of them are seed plants, accounting for 12% of the total number of seed plants in China. Five plant species, including Chinese yew (Taxus chinensis) and Chinese dove tree (Davidia Involucrata), belong to Class I national protected plant species and 45 belongs to Class II national protected plant species (Zhao et al., 2020. Journal of Geographical Sciences: 30(4):642-656).
Taxus wallichiana var. chinensis
Fauna
According to investigations, so far, about 587 wild animal species have been found on Qinling Mountains, including flagship species, such as, giant panda, takin, Sichuan snub-nosed monkey, red panda, and clouded leopard.
Takin and Sichuan snub-nosed monkey observed by infrared cameras
Research sites of BEST network
Tree seedling survey in the plots
Bryophytes survey in the plots
Principal Investigator
Zhanqing Hao (郝占庆): zqhao@nwpu.edu.cn
Shihong Jia (贾仕宏): shihong.jia@nwpu.edu.cn
Research Team:
Dr. Zuoqiang Yuan (Northwestern Polytechnical University)
Dr. Qiulong Yin (Northwestern Polytechnical University)
Selected Publications
Will update soon.
Site Support
This site has been supported by:
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- School of Ecology and Environment, Northwest Polytechnical University