Abstract Detail

Biogeography

Londoño, Camilo [1], Gómez, María Camila [1], Cleef, Antoine [2], Madriñán, Santiago [1].

Páramo Floristic Provinces at regional and local scales.

Páramo is a tropical high elevation ecosystem with a unique and characteristic flora, highly endemic at the specific level and at a local scale. In Colombia, previous Páramo classifications where based on subjective assessments of species distributions, primarily from the occurrence of taxa in each one of the provinces. The aim of this study is to provide an analytical scenario for the patterns of plant diversity in a hierarchical framework that proposes a possible biogeographical history of the plants. We included the Páramos from northern Andes (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru) and from the southern mountains of Central America (Costa Rica and Panama). Additionally, a more detailed study at the Colombian local scale treated 35 Páramo localities. Parsimony Analysis of Endemicity (PAE) and a cluster analysis were applied to a presence/absence data matrix of the Páramo angiosperm species, both at the regional (five units corresponding to four South American countries plus a fifth that groups Central American Páramos) and at the local scale (35 units corresponding to Colombian Páramo complexes). 50% majority rule and a strict consensus trees were obtained for the PAE analysis, and, for the cluster analysis, a Jaccard similarity index was used. As expected, at the regional scale we found a separation between Central American and South American Páramos. For the Colombian Páramos, four phytogeographical provinces were delimited with PAE; similar results were obtained from the cluster analysis. The following phytogeographical provinces are proposed for the Colombian páramo ecosystem: Macizo Colombiano-Cordillera Central, Páramos of Antioquia, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta-Serranía del Perijá, and Cordillera Oriental. These provinces are suggested as the first biogeographical classification for the Colombian Páramos based on quantitative methods, although, some small areas remain unclassified.

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Laboratorio de Botánica y Sistemática

1 - Universidad de los Andes, Departamento de Ciencias Biológicas, Laboratorio de Botánica y Sistemática, Apartado Aéreo 4976, Bogotá, DC, Colombia
2 - University of Amsterdam, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED), Science Park 904, 1098 HX, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Keywords:
Chorology
Phytogeographic provinces
Parsimony Analysis of Endemicity
PAE
Cluster analysis
Andes
Colombia
paramo.

Presentation Type: Poster:Posters for Topics
Session: P
Location: Hall A/Convention Center
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2010
Time: 5:30 PM
Number: PBG001
Abstract ID:186