Preliminary Study On Mossflora And Moss-societies Of Houhe National Nature Reserve, Hubei Province

Houhe National Nature Reserve is located in the south of Wufeng Tujiazu Autonomous County in the southwestern Hubei Province, With its geographical position from 110?29 ' 25"Eto 110?40 ' 45"E in longitude and 30?2 ' 45"N to 30?8 ' 40"N in latitudeThe topography inclines step by step from west to east, with altitudes varied from 2252.2m to 499m in the reserve. It is mountainous area with peak over peak and there are more than 20 peaks with altitude over lOOOm.The reserve is located in the transitional climatic belt between middle subtropical zone and north subtropical zone, with distinct four seasons, cold whiter and hot summer.In August 1999 and April 2001 separately, the author collected more than 600 packages of mosses in Houhe National Nature Reserve. From these specimens, 33 families, 9 genera and 192 species (including 1 subspecies and 3 varieties) are identified. If the family that contains more than 8 species distributed in the Reserve is defined as the preponderant family, then there are 9 preponderant families including 43 genera and 118 species in the Houhe National Nature Reserve. Most of the preponderant families, such as Pottiaceae, Mniaceae, Thuidiaceae, Fissidentaceae and Entodontaceae, are ones widely distributing in temperate regions. There are also families mainly distributing in the tropical and subtropical zone such as Neckeraceae, Meteoriaceae and the families distributing all over the world such as Hypnaceae and Bryaceae.A preliminary floristic analysis shows that bryoflora of the Houhe National Nature Reserve is composed of 9 elements: Cosmopolitan, Pantropical element, Paleotropical element, India-Malaysia element, North Temperate element, East Asian-North American element, Euro-Asian element, East Asia element and Element endemic to China. The great majority of the moss species, 65 species corresponding to 36.72% of the total, belongs to East Asia element. Following the East element, the North Temperate elements consist of 53 species corresponding to 29.94% of the total. The tropical elements (including Pantropical element,Paleotropical element and India-Malaysia element) consist of 38 species sharing 21.47% of the total. The results show that the Houhe National Nature Reserve is transitional climatic belt where the tropical and subtropical elements extend northwards and the North Temperate elements infiltrate southwards, which accords with its geographical location.The comparisons of the bryoflora of the Houhe National Nature Reserve and those of other mountains and regions including Shennongjia National Nature Reserve (Hubei Province), Jiugongshan National Nature Reserve (Hubei Province), Liankangshan Nature Reserve (Henan Province), Gutianshan Nature Reserve (Zhejiang Province), Mt.Jinfu (Sichuan Province), Mt.Changbaishan (Jilin Province) were done. The results show that the relation between the bryoflora of Houhe National Nature Reserve and that of Mt.Jinfu, Shennongjia National Nature Reserve, Jiugongshan National Nature Reserve is the most closest for their genera similarity coefficients are more than 50%, which can be explained by the parallel geographical locations and the similar climatic characteristics of the compared areas. However, the remainder areas, namely Liankangshan Nature Reserve, Gutianshan Nature Reserve, Mt.Xishan and Mt.Changbaishan have no similarity for their generic similarity coefficients are less than 50%.The moss-societies of Houhe National Nature Reserve are very complicated. There are four types of moss-societies (Hydrophytia, Geophytia, Peterophytia and Epixylophytia). Peterophytia and Epixylophytia are more diverse and widely distributed in Huishaxi valley and Yangjiahe valley, whose altitudes are between 1050m and 1400m.