PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #38: Vegetation Analysis.
Wednesday, August 7. Presentation from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM. Exhibit Hall B & C, TCC

Diversity patterns of neotropical vascular epiphytes .

Nieder, Jürgen^*,1, Kueper, Wolfgang¹, Barthlott, Wilhelm¹, ¹ Botanical Institute Bonn, University of Bonn, Bonn

ABSTRACT- More than 10% of all vascular plant species world wide are epiphytes. However, species richness and contribution of epiphytes to overall plant diversity show a complicated spatial distribution, especially in the neotropics. The mid elevations in Andean montane rain forests show an extremely high epiphyte species richness and a maximum degree of endemism. Neotropical lowland forests, on the other hand, have a significantly lower alpha and beta diversity of epiphytes on a local and regional scale. We have sufficient evidence for this model of epiphyte diversity patterns in the neotropics, based on our own field studies. They include sites in Venezuela (Surumoni Crane Project on the upper Orinoco, and the La Carbonera forest in the Andes), in Ecuador (including the Reserva Otonga, the Reserva Guajalito and the Tiputini Biodiversity Station) and in Bolivia. Using our own data and others, we have developed a GIS (Geographical Information System) on neotropical epiphytes. It allows synoptical analyses on overall diversity patterns including the species richness and floristic structure of 50 neotropical epiphyte study sites and detailed studies on the distributions of several hundred epiphyte species.

KEY WORDS: Vascular Epiphytes, Biodiversity, GIS, Neotropics