Study sites from tropical to temperate regions
The study was carried out in the Yunnan province of south-west China
(Fig. 1). Owing to the effects of a tropical monsoonal climate and
varied mountain hilly topography, this area is covered with various
types of highly complex vegetation from tropical monsoonal rainforest to
temperate coniferous forest. Our sampling design is located at tropical
Bubeng (Xishuangbanna), subtropical Xujiaba (Ailaoshan), and the cold
temperate Yulong mountain (Lijiang), respectively (Fig. 1). Three large
permanent plots for long term ecological research with an area of 20 or
25 ha have been established in recent years and a standardized
vegetation inventory has shown a hyper-diverse forest at Bubeng (468
woody species) (Lan et al. , 2008), median-diverse at Xujiaba (103
woody species) (Wen et al. , 2018), and a much lower diversified
coniferous forest at the Yulong mountain (62 woody species) (Huanget al. , 2017).