Indexat a

Llicència i ús

Citacions

Cited 4 times in

Cited 11 times in

Altmetrics

Grant support

O.J., H.C. and F.B. thank the Research Directorate of the University of Cuenca (DIUC) for the economic financing under the research project called "Relaciones inter-especificas entre hospederos, orquideas epifitas y microorganismos fitoestimulantes asociados a sus raices, en bosques nativos andinos de la provincia del Azuay". This research project was developed under the research permit No. No. 120-2016-DPAA/MAE, granted by the Ministry of the Environment of Ecuador. O.C. thank the UTPL for their support in the culmination of the manuscript. We are grateful to Luis Cayuela for his insightful comments on a previous version of the manuscript. The authors thank Diana Szekely and Gregory Gedeon for their help in the language revision. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers who rightly helped improve this manuscript.

Anàlisi d'autories institucional

Compartir

Floristic Groups, and Changes in Diversity and Structure of Trees, in Tropical Montane Forests in the Southern Andes of Ecuador

Publicat a:Diversity. 13 (9): 400- - 2021-09-01 13(9), DOI: 10.3390/d13090400

Autors: Jadan, Oswaldo; Donoso, David A; Cedillo, Hugo; Bermudez, Fernando; Cabrera, Omar

Afiliacions

Resum

Composition, diversity, and structure of trees in tropical montane forests are responsive to ecological gradients and local succession. Those parameters are a result of ecological interactions between vegetation, environment, and location. This study identified floristic groups on mainly secondary forests and evaluated how the composition, diversity, and structure of trees correlate with climate, soil, and age since abandonment. We included in our models a measurement of spatial correlation, to explore the role of dispersion. For this purpose, we measured diameter and height of all trees with DBH >= 10 cm, in twenty-eight 500 m(2) plots, in an elevation range between 2900 and 3500 m. We found 14 indicator species in three floristic groups. Group composition was explained by age since abandonment, which showed strong succession effects. Mean monthly precipitation and Manganese, but not spatial correlation, explained plant composition in these montane forests, suggesting a minor role of dispersion. Species richness and structure of the arboreal vegetation were influenced by interactions between age, precipitation, and soil nutrients concentration. We concluded that in fragmented landscapes, within the rugged region of southern Ecuador, it is possible to find different floristic groups that encompass high variation in their composition.

Paraules clau