Medicinal plants are vital sources of easily accessible remedy used in the countryside healthcare system. This study aimed to find and make record of plants that are used for medicinal therapy by three communities living in Cherangani Hills. So far no single study has documented medicinal plants as a whole in the area. Ethnobotanical data were obtained through interviewing informants using semi-structured questionnaires and extracting information from journals and books. Descriptive statistical analysis was applied to describe the data. Overall 296 plant species from 80 families and 191 genera were identified. Asteraceae family was the most dominant, representing 10.7% of the total plant species recorded. Roots (35.9%) represented the most commonly used parts of the plant. The commonly used method of preparation was decoction (54.9%). The reported diseases were classified into 14 diverse ailment groups out of the 81 health conditions on their underlying user reports. Rural communities in Cherangani Hills are rich sources of plants with medicinal properties. Therapeutic uses of the compiled plants provide basic information that can aid scientists to conduct additional research dedicated to conservation of species and pharmacological studies of species with the greatest significance.

Mount Kenya is of ecological importance in tropical east Africa due to the dramatic gradient in vegetation types that can be observed from low to high elevation zones. However, species richness and phylogenetic diversity of this mountain have not been well studied. Here, we surveyed distribution patterns for a total of 1,335 seed plants of this mountain and calculated species richness and phylogenetic diversity across seven vegetation zones. We also measured phylogenetic structure using the net relatedness index (NRI) and the nearest species index (NTI). Our results show that lower montane wet forest has the highest level of species richness, density, and phylogenetic diversity of woody plants, while lower montane dry forest has the highest level of species richness, density, and phylogenetic diversity in herbaceous plants. In total plants, NRI and NTI of four forest zones were smaller than three alpine zones. In woody plants, lower montane wet forest and upper montane forest have overdispersed phylogenetic structures. In herbaceous plants, NRI of Afro‐alpine zone and nival zone are smaller than those of bamboo zone, upper montane forest, and heath zone. We suggest that compared to open dry forest, humid forest has fewer herbaceous plants because of the closed canopy of woody plants. Woody plants may have climate‐dominated niches, whereas herbaceous plants may have edaphic and microhabitat‐dominated niches. We also proposed lower and upper montane forests with high species richness or overdispersed phylogenetic structures as the priority areas in conservation of Mount Kenya and other high mountains in the Eastern Afro‐montane biodiversity hotspot regions.

Madagascar, a globally renowned biodiversity hotspot characterized by high rates of endemism, is one of the few remaining refugia for many plants and animal species. However, global climate change has greatly affected the natural ecosystem and endemic species living in Madagascar, and will likely continue to influence species distribution in the future. Madagascar is home to six endemic baobab (Adansonia spp., Bombacoideae [Malvaceae]) species (Adansonia grandidieri, A.suarezensis, A.madagascariensis, A.perrieri, A.rubrostipa, A. za), which are remarkable and endangered plants. This study aimed to model the current distribution of suitable habitat for each baobab species endemic to Madagascar and determine the effect that climate change will have on suitable baobab habitat by the years 2050 and 2070. The distribution was modeled using MaxEnt based on locality information of 245 occurrence sites of six species from both online database and our own field work. A total of seven climatic variables were used for the modeling process. The present distribution of all six Madagascar's baobabs was largely influenced by temperature-related factors. Although both expansion and contraction of suitable habitat are predicted for all species, loss of original suitable habitat is predicted to be extensive. For the most widespread Madagascar baobab, A. za, more than 40% of its original habitat is predicted to be lost because of climate change. Based on these findings, we recommend that areas predicted to contract in response to climate change should be designated key protection regions for baobab conservation.

The research about species richness pattern and elevational Rapoport's rule (ERR) have been carried out mostly in the temperate regions in the recent years and scarcely in the tropical mountains; meanwhile, it is unclear whether the ERR is consistent among different life‐forms and phytogeographic affinities. Here, we compiled a database of plant species of Mount Kenya, a tropical mountain of East Africa, and divided these species into twelve groups depending on the life‐form and phytogeographic affinity of each species. We inspected the species richness pattern of each group along the elevation gradient and also tested ERR of each group using Stevens' method. Our results showed that species richness of the total species showed a positively skewed (hump‐shaped) pattern along the elevation gradient and different life‐forms and phytogeographic affinities showed similar hump‐shaped patterns as the total species. The average elevation range size of the total species and herbaceous species showed increasing patterns along the elevation gradient, while lycophytes and ferns, and woody species showed an obvious downward trend after peaking in the high elevation regions. We concluded that the widely distributed herbaceous species which also have broad elevation range sizes are more applicable to ERR, while the narrowly distributed woody species with small elevation range sizes occurring in the higher elevations could reverse ERR. Therefore, we concluded that the ERR is not consistent among different organisms in the same region.

Background: The large and diverse Coffeeae alliance clade of subfamily Ixoroideae (Rubiaceae) consists of 10 tribes, > 90 genera, and > 2000 species. Previous molecular phylogenetics using limited numbers of markers were often unable to fully resolve the phylogenetic relationships at tribal and generic levels. Also, the structural variations of plastomes (PSVs) within the Coffeeae alliance tribes have been poorly investigated in previous studies. To fully understand the phylogenetic relationships and PSVs within the clade, highly reliable and sufficient sampling with superior next-generation analysis techniques is required. In this study, 71 plastomes (40 newly sequenced and assembled and the rest from the GenBank) were comparatively analyzed to decipher the PSVs and resolve the phylogenetic relationships of the Coffeeae alliance using four molecular data matrices. Results: All plastomes are typically quadripartite with the size ranging from 153,055 to 155,908 bp and contained 111 unique genes. The inverted repeat (IR) regions experienced multiple contraction and expansion; five repeat types were detected but the most abundant was SSR. The size of the Coffeeae alliance clade plastomes and its elements are affected by the IR boundary shifts and the repeat types. However, the emerging PSVs had no taxonomic and phylogenetic implications. Eight highly divergent regions were identified within the plastome regions ndhF, ccsA, ndhD, ndhA, ndhH, ycf1, rps16-trnQ-UUG, and psbM-trnD. These highly variable regions may be potential molecular markers for further species delimitation and population genetic analyses for the clade. Our plastome phylogenomic analyses yielded a well-resolved phylogeny tree with well-support at the tribal and generic levels within the Coffeeae alliance. Conclusions: Plastome data could be indispensable in resolving the phylogenetic relationships of the Coffeeae alliance tribes. Therefore, this study provides deep insights into the PSVs and phylogenetic relationships of the Coffeeae alliance and the Rubiaceae family as a whole.

China covers a vast territory harbouring a large number of aquatic plants. Although there are many studies on the β-diversity of total, herbaceous or woody plants in China and elsewhere, few studies have focused on aquatic plants. Here, we analyse a comprehensive data set of 889 aquatic angiosperm species in China, and explore the geographic patterns and climatic correlates of total taxonomic and phylogenetic β-diversity as well as their turnover and nestedness components. Our results show that geographic patterns of taxonomic and phylogenetic β-diversity are highly congruent for aquatic angiosperms, and taxonomic β-diversity is consistently higher than phylogenetic β-diversity. The ratio between the nestedness component and total β-diversity is high in northwestern China and low in southeastern China. The geographic patterns of taxonomic and phylogenetic β-diversity of aquatic angiosperms in China are obviously affected by geographic and climatic distances, respectively. In conclusion, the geographic patterns of taxonomic and phylogenetic β-diversity of aquatic angiosperms are consistent across China. Climatic and geographic distances jointly affect the geographic patterns of β-diversity of aquatic angiosperms. Overall, our work provides insight into understanding the large-scale patterns of aquatic angiosperm β-diversity, and is a critical addition to previous studies on the macroecological patterns of terrestrial organisms.