Journal
PLANT ECOLOGY
Volume 152, Issue 2, Pages 145-156Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1023/A:1011483901452
Keywords
biodiversity; bioindication; disturbed vegetation; podocarpaceae-forest
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Species diversity of vascular epiphyte plant communities was studied in La Carbonera, a montane rain forest dominated by Podocarpaceae in the Venezuelan Andes. We compared the epiphyte communities of the primary, disturbed, and secondary forest areas of La Carbonera in order to augment the scarce knowledge on the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on these important elements of tropical vegetation. Diversity of vascular epiphytes (191 species in the whole forest area) was low in the disturbed and secondary areas (81 spp.) compared to adjacent primary forest (178 spp.). Four types of disturbed forest and secondary vegetation supported different numbers of epiphyte species, showing a decline with increasing degrees of disturbance (65 spp. along a road transect, 42 spp. on relict trees in disturbed forest, 13 spp. in a tree plantation and 7 spp. in a former clearing, both secondary vegetation units). Epiphytic species composition in primary and disturbed or secondary forest areas differed markedly: disturbed habitats harboured fewer fern and orchid species but more bromeliad species than the primary forest. Probably the families occurring only in primary forest sites of our study may be useful as bioindicators to determine the degree of disturbance in other habitats of mountain rain forests as well. Epiphyte abundance was also lower in disturbed habitats: a remnant emergent tree supported only about half as many epiphyte individuals as a member of the same species of similar size in the primary forest. The decrease in species numbers and abundance as well as the differences in species composition are mainly due to the less diverse phorophyte structure and less differentiated microclimate in the disturbed and secondary vegetation compared to the primary forest.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available