The climbing flora of New Caledonia: a comprehensive checklist

New Caledonia, an archipelago located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, hosts a rich and highly original vascular flora, distributed within a remarkable mosaic of habitats. Despite intensive research on the flora, the diversity and ecology of the climbing flora within the archipelago remain virtually unknown. More globally, while most liana studies have been carried out in continental forests, data from island ecosystems remain scarce. This study aims to document the taxonomic diversity, and to analyze the ecology and functional traits of angiosperms climbers in New Caledonia. Using herbarium data, exhaustive bibliographic review and field studies, we provide a checklist of 274 autochthonous climbing taxa, distributed in 45 families. The majority of climbing plant species in New Caledonia are woody, herbaceous vine being infrequent. Climbing plants account for ~ 8% of the native flora (angiosperms), a rather small contribution compared with continental tropical floras. There is, however, a great heterogeneity in the distribution of climbing plants within the different vegetation, as they represent up to 19% of species in the sclerophyll forests, and only ~ 8 and 6.5% in respectively shrublands (maquis) and rain forests, which are the most original ecosystems in New Caledonia. The endemicity is relatively low (64%) compared to the global flora (75% of endemism). Three endemic genera are exclusively climbers (<i>Artia</i>, <i>Balgoya</i> and <i>Clematepistephium</i>). The diversity of climbing plants is concentrated within few families: ~29% belonging to Apocynaceae and more than half of the species are included in just four families.

新喀里多尼亚（New Caledonia）是坐落于西南太平洋的群岛，拥有丰富且极具独特性的维管植物区系，其分布于极具特色的生境镶嵌格局中。尽管针对该群岛的植物区系已开展了大量深入研究，但群岛内攀援植物区系的多样性与生态学特征仍几乎未被探明。从更宏观的视角来看，尽管绝大多数藤本植物（liana）相关研究均聚焦于大陆森林，但来自岛屿生态系统的相关数据仍十分匮乏。本研究旨在记录新喀里多尼亚被子植物攀援类群的分类多样性，并分析其生态学特征与功能性状。本研究通过整合标本馆数据、详尽的文献综述以及野外调查，整理得到包含45科、274个本土攀援类群的名录。新喀里多尼亚的多数攀援植物为木质藤本，草质藤本较为罕见。攀援植物约占本土被子植物区系的8%，与大陆热带植物区系相比，这一占比相对较低。然而，攀援植物在不同植被类型中的分布存在显著异质性：在硬叶林中，攀援植物占物种总数的比例可达19%；而在新喀里多尼亚最具独特性的两类生态系统——灌丛（马基灌丛，maquis）与雨林中，该占比分别仅为约8%与6.5%。与全球植物区系75%的特有率相比，新喀里多尼亚攀援植物的特有性相对较低（64%）。该区域存在3个专性攀援的特有属：Artia、Balgoya和Clematepistephium。攀援植物的多样性集中于少数科：约29%的类群隶属于夹竹桃科（Apocynaceae），且超过半数的物种仅隶属于4个科。