Diversity, Pattern, and Environmental Drivers of Climbing Plants in China

As a distinct plant functional group, climbers critically sustain ecosystem structure and function globally. However, little is known about those in China. Here, we examine the diversity and distribution of Chinese climbers at a regional scale. First, climbing species data were collected. Then, Pearson correlations were conducted to assess relationships between environmental variables and climber species richness. Also, variation partitioning was used to reveal the pure and shared effects of four explanatory variable groups on species richness. A total of 3485 climber species (551 genera, 105 families) were recorded in China. Woody lianas dominated the climbing flora (64.73% of species) relative to herbaceous vines; twining represented the predominant mechanism (1829 species, 52.48%) relative to the others. Chinese climbers largely presented a pattern of species richness that decreased from south to north in China. Moreover, endemic and threatened climbers exhibited strong distributional congruence with all climbers. Additionally, four predictor groups (temperature, precipitation, geography, human impact) were found to jointly account for over 70% of species density variance across different climber types through variation partitioning, with precipitation's pure effect dominating. Thus, Chinese climbers exhibit high diversity and an uneven distribution, primarily driven by precipitation. This study also provides a valuable reference on climbers at the regional scale for future studies.