Plant community data along elevational gradients in China’s 17 mountains

作者：Xiaoran Wang, Yun Chen, Yuxin Chen, Yi Ding, S. Fang, Zhanqing Hao, Zhongsheng He, Gang Hu, Shihong Jia, Buhang Li, Fei Lin, Jie Liu, Lan Liu, Ya‐Huang Luo, Yinghua Luo, Yong Shen, Houjuan Song, Kun Song, Tian Zhongping, Dingliang Xing, Qingpei Yang, Xiuqing Yang, Yongchuan Yang, Zhiliang Yuan, Zuoqiang Yuan, Qiang Zhang, Zhaochen Zhang, Zhonghua Zhang, Jian Zhang · 发表于：Scientific Data · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41597-025-06414-6 · 被引用次数：3 · 研究领域：Species Distribution and Climate Change、Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Bryophyte Studies and Records

Mountains in China are crucial for biodiversity conservation due to unique topography and climate, providing essential habitats and refugia for many plant species. Standardized open datasets along elevational gradients across multiple mountains remain limited. Here we used standardized field protocols to collect plant diversity data of 370 permanent sampling plots along elevations in 17 mountains. Species identity and abundance of all woody plants with ≥ 1 cm diameter at breast height were recorded. We calculated species-level basal area, abundance, and relative importance value for all plants, and separately for two vegetation layers. The dataset spans 46° longitude, 24° latitude, ranges from 166 to 3,835 m a.s.l., and includes 1,493 species from 121 families and 449 genera. It covers nearly all major ecosystems from tropical rainforests to tundra, providing baseline data for studying plant diversity changes along elevations and latitudes. This dataset enables direct comparisons across mountains, helping evaluate impacts of climate and land-use changes on species range shifts and ecosystem transitions, and inform conservation strategies for mountain ecosystems.