Angiosperms, Los Tuxtlas Biosphere Reserve, Veracruz, Mexico

By

Arroyo-Rodríguez, Víctor
Dunn, Jacob C.
Benítez-Malvido, Julieta
Mandujano, Salvador

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2009-10-1

Original Publication

Check list : journal of species lists and distribution

Volume

5

Series / Issue

Issue: 4

Pages

787--799

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

[São Paulo, Brazil] Luís Felipe Toledo 2005-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15560/5.4.787

 

Abstract

The Los Tuxtlas Reserve has been heavily deforested and fragmented since the 1970’s. Although the flora of Los Tuxtlas has been described previously, most floristic lists come from the large forest reserve of the Los Tuxtlas field station. Here we present a check list of Angiosperms recorded in 45 rainforest fragments (< 1 to 266 ha) located in three landscapes with different levels of deforestation. We sampled all trees, shrubs, lianas, palms and herbs with diameter at breast height (dbh) Ā 2.5 cm within ten 50 m x 2 m plots per fragment. We recorded 9,435 plants belonging to 73 families and 372 species. Fabaceae, Rubiaceae, and Moraceae were best represented. Eight species are classified as Endangered by the Mexican government, and five are human-introduced species. We conclude that the conservation and restoration of all the remaining rainforest fragments are necessary to effectively preserve the plant diversity of this region.