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Three new species of Coecobrya are described from southern and northwest China. C. draconis sp. nov. from Guangxi cave shows some troglomorphic features, such as the inner ungual teeth inserted basally. C. xui sp. nov. is similar to C. huangi and differs from the latter by head and tergal chaetotaxy. C. qin sp. nov. is the second member of the genus with 3+3 eyes, but cannot be assigned to either the tenebricosa-or boneti-groups because it has eyes and a large outer tooth on unguiculus.

Sprouting, a life history strategy found in woody plant communities, enables woody plants to persist in situ through disturbance events. The 'persistence niche' of sprouting has important influences on species coexistence, community assembly, and ecosystem stability. However, the mechanism of the 'persistence niche' in maintaining species diversity is not well understood. Based on data collected in a 5 ha plot in a mid-subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest in the Gutianshan National Natural Reserve of Zhejiang Province, China, we analyzed the characteristics of sprouting and their relationships with species diversity. Our results revealed that the sprouting species had a great proportion of 63.95% in richness and a high proportion of 38.53% in abundance, especially a higher abundance proportion of 59.51% of potential sprouting at the community level. Sprouting occurred in most taxa, and there was high ability of sprouting in Fagaceae, Ericaceae, Hamamelidaceae, and Theaceae. There were significant negative correlations between abundance proportion of sprouting species and the biodiversity index of the community, despite no relationships between richness proportion of sprouting species and biodiversity index. Therefore, the sprouters could retain their position in forests and reduce biodiversity of the forest community. This trade-off of sprouting may result in the maintenance of community stability.

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