Study sites from tropical to temperate regions
The study was carried out in the Yunnan province of south-west China (Fig. 1). Owing to the effects of a tropical monsoonal climate and varied mountain hilly topography, this area is covered with various types of highly complex vegetation from tropical monsoonal rainforest to temperate coniferous forest. Our sampling design is located at tropical Bubeng (Xishuangbanna), subtropical Xujiaba (Ailaoshan), and the cold temperate Yulong mountain (Lijiang), respectively (Fig. 1). Three large permanent plots for long term ecological research with an area of 20 or 25 ha have been established in recent years and a standardized vegetation inventory has shown a hyper-diverse forest at Bubeng (468 woody species) (Lan et al. , 2008), median-diverse at Xujiaba (103 woody species) (Wen et al. , 2018), and a much lower diversified coniferous forest at the Yulong mountain (62 woody species) (Huanget al. , 2017).