Exploration of the floristic relations of the dry forest throughout the Neotropics
Author: Karina Banda-R, Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. Research conducted with the support of Colciencias and the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Doctoral research (2013-2016), supervised by Toby Pennington and Kyle Dexter, sponsored by Colciencias. The project was initially focused on the dry forests of Colombia but was expanded to cover all of Latin America and the Caribbean through the seasonal dry forest Floristic Network of Latin America - DRYFLOR (http://www.dryflor.info/). The dry forest has been considered one of the most threatened tropical forests around the world. Although the interest of scientists and decision-makers in the dry forest has increased considerably, conservation efforts have still been insufficient. For example, in Colombia, the remaining dry forest covers only 8% of its original extension and is found in highly transformed anthropogenic landscapes, mainly as small fragments.
The results of the continental analyzes of the research were published by the DRYFLOR network in the journal Science (2016), which show that the dry forest in the Neotropics contains about 7,000 woody species based on 1,600 floristic listings, these species are rarely present in more than one region. For that reason, simultaneous conservation actions are required within multiple regions to safeguard the diversity of dry forests.
The research also includes a regional study of floristic relations in the dry tropical forest group of Central America and northern South America, using quantitative approaches for the prioritization of conservation actions, including a new Conservation Priorities Index (CPI). The study emphasizes the need for a biogeographic approach to conservation, which should not be restricted by political boundaries. On the other hand, focused only on the dry forests of Colombia, new quantitative floristic data were used to investigate the factors that control floristic composition in dry forests. The multivariate analyses showed that the variables related to space and land use explain a greater fraction of the variance of the floristic composition than the climatic or edaphic variables. The importance of spatial variables implies that biogeography is a key element to understand the structure of communities and that Andean mountain could be acting as geographic barriers to isolate these seasonally dry formations.
Also was analyzed the value of floristic inventory data was to evaluate the conservation status of tree species using the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (UICN by its initials in Spanish) criteria, in the dry forest of the Andean Foothill (Argentina and Bolivia). By combining the inventory data from the DRYFLOR database and herbarium records, the number of species for which we have sufficient information to perform conservation assessments increases by 16% and the accuracy of the predictive distribution of species improves for the 84% of the species. In summary, these results reveal the importance of ecological inventory data as a source of complementary data in the evaluation of the conservation of dry forest trees in the Neotropics.
Finally, the conclusions of the doctoral thesis expose these results in the context of the conservation planning of the Colombian dry forests, including some research suggestions, policies, and actions
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Partner
Colciencias, Royal Botanic Garden, Reino Unido
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Status
Fulfilled
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Location
The Colombian Caribbean
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