Abstract
The family Carlemanniaceae in East Asia and tropical Asia, comprising two genera, Carlemannia and Silvianthus, are mainly distributed along the southern foot of the Himalaya Mountains and the western and southern interface of the Yunnan Plateau. The main reproductive process for Carlemannia tetragona was verified as self-pollination by the pollination experiments in this work. Germination rates for seeds of both C. tetragona and Silvianthus bracteatus could reach 100% when the seeds were collected after two months, while the rates decreased to 25% when collection took place in the previous year. It was found that the seed had no dormancy stages, and their seed banks were of the Transient Soil type. In field observations, the dehiscence status for fruits showed that their seeds could not be ejected effectively by capsules for dispersal. After analyzing the temperature and rainfall data from the years 1971 to 2000, it was shown that annual rainfall, the lowest mean monthly temperature in a year, and the extreme lowest temperature in a month had a great effect on the distribution range of Carlemanniaceae, while the mean annual temperature had a lesser effect. The narrow distribution range of Carlemanniaceae was affected by multiple factors, such as the short pollen dispersal distance and the Transient Soil Seed Bank. The population sizes of Carlemanniaceae were also easily affected by the level of rainfall, not by any single variable.
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Supported by the National Key Project for Basic Research on Ecosystem Changes in the Longitudinal Range-Gorge Region and Trans-boundary Eco-security of Southwest China (2003CB415103)
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Yang, X., Lu, S., Zhang, Y. et al. Factors acting on the distribution region of Carlemanniaceae: Rainfall, temperature and the plants’ biological characteristics. Chin. Sci. Bull. 52 (Suppl 2), 244–250 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-7017-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-7017-1