As the United Nations develops a post-2020 global biodiversity framework for the Convention on Biological Diversity, attention is focusing on what kind of data could contribute to management remedies for ecosystem conservation to serve its vision of ‘living in harmony with nature’ (Nicholson et al. 2021, Keith et al. 2022). Facing enhanced global ecosystem degradation, biological globalisation and local human pressure, fully understanding data on floristic units, such as a checklist, will be of outstanding value for comprehending and then hopefully managing the rapid change in ecosystem and its biodiversity (Armonies et al. 2018). Given the important role of plants in the ecosystem, a plant checklist provides indispensable basic data that will assist in establishing conservation actions and priorities, providing a support to theory and practice of ecosystem restoration (Shetu et al. 2018). More importantly, checklists can be instrumental in providing tools for additional floristic surveys and biodiversity treatments (Francisco-Ortega et al. 2010).

Although the significance of a checklist is self-evident, there remains a large number of important floristic units lacking basic data obtained from field surveys, such as the Wanda Mountains located in north-eastern China (Fig. 4Wang et al. 2016). With respect to the flora and vegetation of the Wanda Mountains, both are generally considered as a part of the Changbai Mountains and have, therefore, never been treated independently as an individual floristic region of north-eastern China (Zhou et al. 1997, Wang et al. 2016). However, they underwent different processes of formation. Multiple volcanic eruptions have taken place in Changbai Mountains, which has obvious characteristics of primary succession in its plant composition (Fu et al. 1995). In contrast, volcanic influence never reached the Wanda Mountains, so the formation process of its flora has never been interrupted (Wang et al. 2016). In terms of geographical location and climate, the east of Changbai Mountains is close to the Sea of Japan and the south is adjacent to the north China floristic region, which makes it warm and abundant in rainfall (800 - 1800 mm) (Fu et al. 1995, Zhou et al. 1997). In comparison, the Wanda Mountains is located in the north of Changbai Mountains, next to the Xiaoxing'an Mountains, which are colder and drier (500 - 800 mm) (Zhou et al. 1997, Jiang et al. 2005). The difference in altitude is also greater: with the Changbai Mountains having the only alpine tundra region in northeast China above 2100 m and the main peak standing at 2,750 m (Fu et al. 1995, Zhou et al. 1997). In contrast, the average altitude of the Wanda Mountains' hills is only approximately 300 m and the main peak stands at only 854 m (Jiang et al. 2005). Although the Wanda Mountain can be regarded as an independent floristic unit, it has not been given corresponding attention. To date, no flora, checklist or atlas of the Wanda Mountains has been published and no important plant conservation area has been established in this area.

Figure 1.  

Taxonomic coverage of the first checklist by family: number and percentage of species and infraspecific taxa. Each pie chart represents a family and shows the number and percentage of species and infraspecific taxa within that family. The scientific name of each family is also provided.

Figure 2.  

Taxonomic coverage of the 656 native plants by family: number and percentage of species and infraspecific taxa. Each pie chart represents a family and shows the number and percentage of species and infraspecific taxa within that family. The scientific name of each family is also provided.

Figure 3.  

Taxonomic coverage of the 48 invasive alien plants by family: number and percentage of species and infraspecific taxa. Each pie chart represents a family and shows the number and percentage of species and infraspecific taxa within that family. The scientific name of each family is also provided.

Figure 4.  

Distribution of mountains in north-eastern China.

In this study, we compiled the first checklist of spermatophyte and invasive alien plants of Wanda Mountains. Consequently we updated the scientific names and taxonomic treatments by using several bibliographic/taxonomic database resources, including the Catalogue of Life, China (The Biodiversity Committee of Chinese Academy of Sciences 2021), the International Plant Name Index (IPNI 2022), The World Flora Online (WFO 2022), Plants of the World Online (POWO 2022), Flora of China website (FOC, Institute of Botany, the Chinese Academy of Sciences 2019) and APGIV system (The Angiosperm Phylogeny Group 2016). Invasive plants mainly refer to Alien Invasive Flora of China (Ma 2020), The Survey Reports on Chinese Alien Invasive Plants (Ma 2014), various floras, specimens and survey materials. We also marked the plants that have not been recorded as ‘new record’ against local floras, which are ‘Flora Heilongjiangensis’ (Zhou 2003), ‘Ligneous Flora of Heilongjiang’ (Zhou 1986), ‘Flora Plantarum Medicinalium Chinae Boreali-Orientalis’ (Liou 1959), ‘Flora Plantarum Herbacearum Chinae Boreali–Orientalis’ (Liou 2004), ‘Atlas of Northeast Plant Distribution’ (Cao et al. 2019), as well as specimen records from CVH (Chinese Virtual Herbarium) (CVH 2020).

This checklist of Wanda Mountains, obtained through published materials, specimens as well as field surveys, can pave the way for species threat abatement, recovery metrics and more extensive floristic studies and can also provide clues for considering Wanda Mountains as an independent unit in the context of the broader ecosystem recovery.

Overall, the final checklist of spermatophyta and invasive alien plants of the Wanda Mountains contains a total of 704 species and infraspecific taxa, comprised of 656 native plants belonging to 328 genera and 94 families, while 48 invasive alien plants belonging to 39 genera and 20 families were also found. Amongst these, there are 251 new records in native plants and 39 new records in invasive plants. The number of plant species in the Wanda Mountains' area recorded in "Flora Heilongjiangensis" (Zhou 2003) is about 400, while those recorded in the Chinese Virtual Herbarium (CVH 2020) are 227 belonging to 183 genera and 79 families. Therefore, this first checklist is relatively complete.

In total, Asteraceae (63 species and infraspecific taxa), Cyperaceae (51 species and infraspecific taxa) and Asteraceae (10 species), Fabaceae (seven species) emerged as the richest families amongst native and invasive plants, respectively. In regard to native plants, there are eight families with more than 20 species and infraspecific taxa, which are Asteraceae (63), Cyperaceae (51), Ranunculaceae (44), Rosaceae (33), Poaceae (30) Lamiaceae (26) Fabaceae (22) and Caryophyllaceae (21) from the most to the least (Fig. 2). The relatively large families account for 8.51% of the total families and the species that belong to these families account for 44.21% of the total species in this area. In contrast, there are 63 families with five or fewer species and infraspecific taxa and 25 families with only one species and infraspecific taxa. These small families comprise 67.02% of the total families and 21.65% of the total species and infraspecific taxa. This proportion reveals that, on the one hand, dominant families do play an significant role in constituting the main body of the flora of this area and, on the other hand, the Wanda Mountains present a characteristic of complicated species composition with numerous small families.

In regard to invasive alien plants, the top three richest families are Asteraceae (10), Fabaceae (7) and Amaranthaceae (6), accounting for 47.92% of 47 species (Fig. 3). In terms of life form, there are 32 annual or biennial herbs (66.67%), 11 perennial herbs (22.92%), four woody plants (8.33%) and one perennial aquatic herb (2.08%) that is Nasturtium officinale. Some invasive alien plants which have widely invaded Heilongjiang Province, such as Erigeron annuus, Crepis tectorum, Helianthus tuberosus, Hibiscus trionum, Oenothera biennis, Trifolium repens, Trifolium pratense, Ambrosia trifida and Senecio vulgaris occurred on the list as well. During the survey, it is apparent that the invasive alien plants spread along the trafficway strongly presents anthropochory characteristics. According to the survey of invasive plants in Heilongjiang in 2012, the number of invasive plants at that time was 41 species belonging to 35 genera, 17 families (Zheng and Pan 2012), while it has increased to nearly 100 species by 2022 (Wang et al. 2022). In this way, the number shows a trend of rapid growth. Even though we have collected 48 invasive alien plant data, there are some insufficiencies in our survey due to some harmful and widely invasive plants absent from the list, such as Ambrosia artemisiifolia, Bidens bipinnata and Cyclachaena xanthiifolia, which are presumed to have invaded the area.

To a certain extent, the first checklist reflects the Spermatophyta profile of the natural ecosystem in Wanda Mountains and gives a stable data basis for the study of flora, biodiversity, vegetation dynamics and preventing the introduction of alien species in this region.