Strategies To Protect Germplasm Resources Of Wild Orchids In Hainan Island

Orchidaceae is one of the largest families of flowering plants. All wild orchid species are included in the Appendixâ…¡of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and regarded as a flagship group in plant conservation.On the basis of the distribution data obtained from specimens kept in the herbariums including PE, KUN, IBSC, HIB, HITBC, CDBI, IBK, SZ and SYS, and the literature up to 2005, information of wild orchids in Hainan Island, species list covered the latest published reports to 2005, we constructed the species list of Hainan Island with treating 19 administrative counties as the distribution units. The floristic composition and characteristics of wild orchids were analysed. Priority areas with the richest wild orchid flora and the minimum number of distribution units needed to protect all wild orchid species in Hainan Island were determined with the parsimony analysis of endemicity (PAE) and the complementarity analysis. The main results and conclusions are summarized as the following:(1) There are 77 genera and 202 species of wild orchids in Hainan Island, of which 30 species are endemic to China (including 14 species endemic to Hainan). Seventeen species occur only in Hainan Island despite they are not endemic to China. The main genera are Liparis, Dendrobium, Eria, Bulbophyllum and Cymbidium in this area, each of which have more than ten species.(2) The areal-types of genera of this orchid flora could be divided into 12 types and subtypes. Among them, the tropical Asia (Indo-Malesia) type is the richest one, comprising 50.7% of all local wild orchid species. There are 70 tropical genera of wild orchid in Hainan Island, accounting for 90.9% of the total genera.(3) The life forms of Hainan orchids are rich, with 42 genera terrestrial, 32 epiphytic and 5 saprophytic genera (Liparis and Cymbidium have the life forms of terrestrial and epiphytic species, respectively).(4) Comparing with the neighbouring regions, the wild orhid flora in Hainan Island is...