Climatic domains of the Sierra Madre Oriental and its relationship to floristic diversity

The Sierra Madre Oriental has lost about 30% of its natural habitat; for this reason, we considered imperative to know better its biodiversity and those environmental variables that account for its distribution. It is possible to identify 4 climatic regions in the Sierra Madre Oriental, but we do not know their relationships with the biodiversity. We propose to evaluate its climatic variability in order to determine the climatic domains characterizing its territory and their relationships with the floristic richness represented by the family Asteraceae. The definition of climatic domains was through multivariate analyses, using climatic data obtained from estimates of 19 climatic parameters obtained from the WorldClim database analyzed with the ANUCLIM software to 1 km(2) resolution. After an initial non-hierarchical classification, a hierarchical re-classification was made using the Gowers metrics and a clustering method (UPGMA); 277 climatic domains were identified along the Sierra Madre Oriental. They were later used to explain their relationships with the main biomes found in the mountain chain, as well as to determine the richness (alpha) in each of these climatic domains. Temperate forest is the biome with the greatest wealth of 29 species and has a high geographical correlation with one of the climatic domains obtained. We hope with this study to contribute with information useful to support the biodiversity conservation efforts carried out actually in the region. (C) 2017 Universidad Nacional Autionoma de Mexico, Instituto de Biologia.