According to what they publish members of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) in the magazine Science, the alpine flora of the Hengduan Mountains has existed continuously for much longer than any other flora on Earth.
Threatened by global warming, the world's most species-rich temperate alpine biota is found in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains (THH).
Hengduan Mountains
In the investigation, phylogenies calibrated in the time of 18 groups of flowering plants by using a joint model of biome occupancy, geographic range evolution, and lineage diversification.
Androsace zambalensis in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains (THH). The Hengduan Mountains are not only the cradle of alpine plants, but are also the main source of alpine lineages colonizing the Himalayas and the QTP. As explained Ding Wenna, first author of the study:
Our results, derived from analyzes of time-scale molecular phylogenies and non-in situ fossil evidence of Alpine ancestry, are, however, temporally consistent with more recent geological evidence that active orogeny associated with widespread crustal shortening and thickening established highlands from eastern Tibet to the Hengduan Mountains at the end of the Eocene.
Meconopsis rudis in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP), Himalayas and Hengduan Mountains (THH). –
The news
The oldest alpine flora in the world is discovered in China
was originally published in
Xataka Science
by
Sergio Parra
.