Gutianshan National Nature Reserve () is a nature reserve in

Kaihua County Kaihua County () is a county under the jurisdiction of Quzhou city in Zhejiang Province of the People's Republic of China. It is located in the westernmost portion of Zhejiang, and is the source of the Qiantang River. The district's total area is ...

, in the western part of

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , Chinese postal romanization, also romanized as Chekiang) is an East China, eastern, coastal Provinces of China, province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable citie ...

Province, on the border of

Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...

province. The reserve was established as a smaller, provincial-level nature reserve in 1975, and upgraded to its present size and status in 2001. The reserve occupies a mountainous, forested area, and is part of the Nanling mountains. The highest peak is Shiershan () at .

Flora and fauna

The reserve was established to preserve old-growth evergreen broad-leaved forest in the region. About 57% of the reserve is natural forest. Altogether 1426 species of seed plants have been reported in the reserve. The dominant plants species are ''

Castanopsis eyrei ''Castanopsis eyrei'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Fagaceae, native to southern China, and Taiwan. An evergreen tree typically tall, it is usually found in late successional forests from above sea level, where it is often the ...

'', '' Schima superba'' (), and ''

Pinus massoniana ''Pinus massoniana'' ( English: Masson's pine, Chinese red pine, horsetail pine; Chinese: 馬尾松) is a species of pine, native to Taiwan, a wide area of central and southern China, and northern Vietnam. Description It is an evergreen tr ...

''. Notable birds of the reserve include

Elliot's pheasant Elliot's pheasant (''Syrmaticus ellioti''), is a large pheasant native to south-eastern China. Description Males are up to long; they are brown and white with a black throat, chestnut-brown upper parts, white belly, nape and wing bars, red ba ...

. Mammals include clouded leopard, Asian black bear,

Sumatran serow The Sumatran serow (''Capricornis sumatraensis sumatraensis''), also known as the southern serow, is a subspecies of the mainland serow native to mountain forests in the Thai-Malay Peninsula and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It was previo ...

, and

sika deer The sika deer (''Cervus nippon''), also known as the Northern spotted deer or the Japanese deer, is a species of deer native to much of East Asia and introduced to other parts of the world. Previously found from northern Vietnam in the south to ...

. The reserve hosts a population of

hairy-fronted muntjac The hairy-fronted muntjac or black muntjac (''Muntiacus crinifrons'') is a type of deer currently found in Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian in southeastern China. It is considered to be endangered, possibly down to as few as 5–10,000 individ ...

s estimated at 300–400 individuals.

Research activity

The reserve hosts a 24-ha forest plot that belongs to the Chinese Forest Biodiversity Monitoring Network (CForBio). The plot was established in 2005 when all trees with the diameter at breast height (dbh) ≥1 cm were tagged, identified, measured, and georeferenced. Altogether 140,676 individual trees from 49 families and 159 species were identified in the plot. The plot belongs also to the global network of forest research plots in the

Center for Tropical Forest Science The Center for Tropical Forest Science, or CTFS, was a consortium of forest researchers who pursued long-term research on tree populations using comparable census method. The work developed out of a study of 50 hectares of forest on Barro Colorado I ...

consortium. Several scientific publications have resulted from studies conducted on the plot. In 2009 Research Station of Forestry Biodiversity and Climatic Change belonging to the Institute of Botany (

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republi ...

) was opened. The station was co-sponsored by HSBC, the

Earthwatch Institute Earthwatch Institute is an international environmental charity. Founded as Educational Expeditions International in 1971 by Bob Citron and Clarence Truesdale, Earthwatch supports hundreds of Ph.D. researchers across dozens of countries, conduct ...

and the Institute of Botany

References

External links

* * {{cite web , url=http://protectedplanet.net/sites/Gutianshan_Nature_Reserve , title=Gutianshan Nature Reserve , year=2012 , work=protectedplanet.net , access-date=18 June 2012 — shows the reserve borders Nature reserves in China Tourist attractions in Quzhou