Mountains of South-West China

Stretching over 262,400 km², the Mountains of Southwest China ranges in altitude from less than 2,000 to 7,558 meters. This hotspot supports a wide variety of vegetation types including broad-leaved and coniferous forests, bamboo groves, scrub communities, savannah, meadow, prairie, freshwater wetlands, and alpine scrub and scree communities.

The Mountains of South-West China are home to many animals including more than 230 mammal, 600 bird, 90 reptile, 90 amphibian and 90 fish species. Many of these are endangered, primarily due to habitat loss.

These mountains also support over 12,000 plant species, including more than 60 species of bamboo.

 

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The Giant Panda’s survival is linked to the availability, abundance and nutritional quality of bamboo.

Bamboo is the fastest growing plant in the world. In ideal conditions, it can grow as fast as 121cm a day!

However a Giant Panda can eat up to 20kg of stems a day, and can eat a 150 cm stem in 70 seconds. This means they need a lot of habitat to survive.

After bamboo flowers, it creates seeds and then dies, with all plants of the same stock flowering at the same time regardless of location.

This can cause food shortages for Giant Pandas, who then need to move to a new area to feed. However farms and villages now surround much of their habitat, making it hard for pandas to move easily.