Abstract

MORENO-CAVAZOS, María Paula; SOTO-MEDINA, Edier Alberto; TORRES-GONZALEZ, Alba Marina  and  LLANO-ALMARIO, Martín. Altitudinal patterns of plant communities in the Chocó biogeographical region of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Rev. acad. colomb. cienc. exact. fis. nat. [online]. 2018, vol.42, n.164, pp.269-279. ISSN 0370-3908.  https://doi.org/10.18257/raccefyn.626.

In order to identify altitudinal patterns of woody plant diversity in the biogeographical region of Chocó and to evaluate the effect of climatic parameters on these, we studied the structure and plant diversity of five localities. In each locality, we sampled ten subplots of 50 x 2m including all individuals with a diameter at breast height of ≥ 2.5 cm. Additionally, we considered the data from seven biogeographic Chocó localities sampled with the same method. Arecaceae, Rubiaceae and Melastomataceae families dominated in richness and abundance, with the highest importance value indexes. Alpha diversity was higher at low elevations and lower at higher elevations. When adding the other localities, the altitudinal pattern of richness decreased with increasing altitude. The richness of plants had a strong linear relationship with temperature and a logarithmic relationship with precipitation. In this sense, the greatest richness was registered in the areas of the biogeographic Chocó with a higher temperature and relative humidity, although precipitation could reach a saturation point where the increase of plant diversity would be limited.

Keywords : Biodiversity; Altitudinal gradient; Species richness; Belt transect.

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