In mountain tropical forests, understory herbs have received little attention compared to trees, and their commonness and rarity are virtually unknown. We studied ground herbs to explore how they are ...assembled in a full one-hectare plot and to test the influence of light intensity (LI) and topographic habitats in species composition. The plot is a humid montane forest located in the Pasochoa Volcano, at 3300 m. We found 43 genera and 50 perennial species (30 angiosperms in 17 families, and 20 ferns). Interestingly, herbs are 64% richer in species than trees in the same study plot (50 vs. 32). Herbs were mostly obligately terrestrial (70% of the species), while 30% were fallen climbers and epiphytes rooted in the ground. Across the forest, there were 31,119 individuals that covered 8.5% of the ground. We concluded that both LI and topography shaped the species distribution, the floristic composition, and the community structure of ground herbs. For instance, 12% of the species were exclusively found in places with high LI; the rest of species grew in medium- to low-LI environments. Concerning rarity, we found that 39% of the species are rare (judging by botanical collections; <100), which stresses the need of conservation strategies for this group of plants.
Conserving both biodiversity and ecosystem services is a major goal of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Hotspots for biodiversity in the Andes significantly overlap with areas with dense human ...populations that sustain their economy through agricultural production. Therefore, developing management forms that reconcile food provisioning services-such as agriculture-with biodiversity conservation must be addressed to avoid social conflicts and to improve conservation in areas where biodiversity co-occurs with other ecosystem services. Here, we present a high-resolution conservation plan for vascular plants and agriculture in the Ecuadorian Dry Inter-Andean Valleys (DIAV) hotspot. Trade-offs in conserving important areas for both biodiversity and agriculture were explored.
We used a dataset containing 5,685 presence records for 95 plant species occurring in DIAVs, of which 14 species were endemic. We developed habitat suitability maps for the 95 species using Maxent. Prioritization analyses were carried out using a conservation planning framework. We developed three conservation scenarios that selected important areas for: biodiversity only, agriculture only, and for both biodiversity and agriculture combined.
Our conservation planning analyses, capture 33.5% of biodiversity and 11% of agriculture under a scenario solely focused on the conservation of
. On the other hand, the top 17% fraction of the
scenario captures 10% of biodiversity and 28% of agriculture. When biodiversity and agriculture were considered in combination, their representation varied according to the importance given to agriculture. The most balanced solution that gives a nearly equal representation of both biodiversity and agriculture, was obtained when agriculture was given a slightly higher importance over biodiversity during the selection process.
This is the first evaluation of trade-offs between important areas for biodiversity and agriculture in Ecuadorian DIAV. Our results showed that areas with high agricultural productivity and high biodiversity partly overlapped. Our study suggests that a land-sharing strategy would be appropriate for conserving plant diversity and agriculture in the DIAV. Overall, our study reinforces the idea that friendly practices in agriculture can contribute to biodiversity conservation.
Seasonally dry tropical forests are distributed across Latin America and the Caribbean and are highly threatened, with less than 10% of their original extent remaining in many countries. Using 835 ...inventories covering 4660 species of woody plants, we show marked floristic turnover among inventories and regions, which may be higher than in other neotropical biomes, such as savanna. Such high floristic turnover indicates that numerous conservation areas across many countries will be needed to protect the full diversity of tropical dry forests. Our results provide a scientific framework within which national decision-makers can contextuaiize the floristic significance of their dry forest at a regional and continental scale.
BIOGEOGRAPHIC BARRIERS IN THE ANDES Quintana, Catalina; Pennington, R. Toby; Ulloa, Carmen Ulloa ...
Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden,
11/2017, Letnik:
102, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We investigate whether the Amotape–Huancabamba zone in the Andes acts as a barrier or corridor for plant species migration. We test this hypothesis based on data on trees, shrubs, and herbs collected ...in dry inter-Andean valleys (DIAVs) of Ecuador. We found that 72% of the species cross the Amotape–Huancabamba zone in a north–south direction and 13% of the species cross the Andes in an east–west direction. Southern DIAVs concentrate the highest numbers of endemic species. At the regional level we found that 43% of the species are exclusively Andean, while the remaining 57% are found in the Pacific lowlands, the Caribbean, and Mesoamerica. These results showing many species crossing the Amotape–Huancabamba zone in a north–south direction and also frequently found in neighboring lowland and highland ecosystems suggest that the Amotape–Huancabamba zone acts as a corridor for species migration of dry inter-Andean flora.
La presente tesis es una reconsideración crítica y proyectual del Observatorio Astronómico Cerro El Roble, perteneciente a la Universidad de Chile, y cuyo estado actual, de abandono, es el resultado ...de múltiples factores, uno de ellos, relevante a esta investigación, su aparente incompletitud, y su inadecuación a estándares mínimos de habitabilidad y relevancia científica.Esta premisa, que introduce la noción de incompletitud, es comprendida como una oportunidad de experimentación proyectual, para generar estrategias de intervención en base al estudio de una pieza de infraestructura que, en su localización remota, requeriría de un alto grado de autosuficiencia para cumplir con las condiciones mínimas para garantizar la habitabilidad. Este proyecto, a través de la arquitectura, necesita un grado de adaptación a las nuevas tecnologías tanto para recibirlas como para desprenderse de ellas en un futuro, instalando un germen de permanente transformación dentro de los vaivenes de la incompletitud como proceso y parte del ciclo de vida de los edificios.Tal como se propone, las preguntas de investigación surgen de cuestionar y considerar cuales serían exactamente los elementos, objetos, recintos e instalaciones que faltarían en el observatorio para hacer de el un todo coherente y funcional, otorgándole grados de autosuficiencia en un lugar de condiciones extremas. En este sentido, la investigación propone reactivar el edificio para la ciencia y la investigación, actualizando su infraestructura y agregando elementos que complementen las preexistencias “así encontradas”, para proponer un nuevo Centro de Investigación Multidisciplinario para la Universidad de Chile.El observatorio se ubica en un edificio de fines de los años 60, que está emplazado en la cumbre del Cerro El Roble, a 2.222 metros de altura sobre el nivel del mar. Su elemento principal es el telescopio AZT-16 Maksutov instalado en 1967. Este fue el instrumento astronómico más grande jamás producido en la Unión Soviética, bajo la dirección del ingeniero óptico soviético Dmitry Dmitrievich Maksutov en la fábrica LOMO y en los talleres de Pulkovo, el Observatorio Nacional en San Petersburgo. El edificio y cúpula para el AZT-16 Maksutov en Cerro El Roble fue obra de los arquitectos chilenos Enrique Marchetti y Marcelo Deglin, como una estructura de hormigón armado que contiene un observatorio de techo corredizo para el telescopio, un laboratorio fotográfico, espacio para oficinas y un pequeño departamento de tres habitaciones, cocina y baño, para la residencia de los astrónomos.Este edificio fue prontamente criticado por su aparente mala construcción. Así lo describió el embajador John Korry en su informe para el Departamento de Estado de EE. UU., diciendo que “si bien el telescopio Maksutov en sí es un instrumento de primera clase, una de las dificultades en El Roble son las primitivas y mal construidas instalaciones levantadas allí por los chilenos, que han afectado negativamente la moral de los soviéticos y chilenos por igual.” (Embajada de Estados Unidos en Santiago de Chile, 1968: 3). Esto se evidencia también en la propia experiencia del astrónomo chileno José Maza, quien relata que “El Maksutov no lo operaba nadie, porque es muy complicado.
Response Pennington, R. Toby; Banda-R, Karina; Delgado-Salinas, Alfonso ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
02/2017, Letnik:
355, Številka:
6324
Journal Article
Florisitic ground surveys in tropical rain forests are laborious and time consuming, so we tested to what degree reflectance differences visible in Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite images can ...be used to predict differences in florisitic composition and species richness among rain forest sites. To gain ecological understanding of the rain forest ecosystem, we also tested to what extent variation in these vegetation characteristics can be explained by edaphic site conditions. The study was conducted in a relatively homogeneous area of Amazonian rain forest in Yasuní National Park, Ecuador. We established 27 transects of 5 m x 500 m within an area of ~20 km x 25 km to study edaphic and floristic patterns mainly within the tierra firme (non-inundated) forest. In each transect, soil samples were collected for chemical and textural analyses, and the abundance of each species belonging to two understory plant groups, pteridophytes (ferns and fern allies) and the Melastomataceae, was assessed. Floristic similarity between transect pairs varied widely and ranged from almost no overlap in species composition to very high overlap. The among-transect floristic similarity patterns of the two plant groups were strongly correlated with each other no matter whether presence-absence or abundance data were used. The floristic similarity patterns were also strongly correlated with the similarity in pixel values of the infrared bands in the Landsat TM satellite image and with the similarity in most of the measured soil variables. Similarity in species richness, on the contrary, was neither correlated with similarity in pixel values nor with similarity in most of the soil variables. We conclude that reflectance patterns in satellite images can be efficiently used to predict landscape-scale floristic and edaphic patterns in tierra firme rain forest. Predicting patterns in species richness, on the other hand, is not possible in the same straightforward manner. These results have important practical implications for land use and conservation planning as well as for ecological and biodiversity research.
Response Pennington, R. Toby; Banda-R, Karina; Delgado-Salinas, Alfonso ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
02/2017, Letnik:
355, Številka:
6324
Journal Article
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