Botanical Inventory of the Cordillera del Condor Region of Ecuador and Peru

Missouri Botanical Garden, Saint Louis MO

Investigators

Abstract

0346679 Neill Dr. David Neill and colleagues Steven Churchill and Henk van der Werff at Missouri Botanical Garden and several Latin American colleagues will conduct a comprehensive, three-year botanical inventory of the Cordillera del Condor, a geologically complex section of the Andes located in southeastern Ecuador and neighboring Peru. Large-scale gold and copper mining pose an imminent threat to the still largely intact forests of the Condor region, which is composed mainly of sandstones and limestones with mineral-bearing igneous intrusions. The Cordillera del Condor has an exceptionally rich flora-one of the most diverse and poorly known floras in the Neotropics, including many plants that occur nowhere else. Of particular interest are the region's sandstone areas, where researchers recently discovered several plant species that are closely related to species from the sandstone mountains of the Guayana region situated 3000 kilometers to the northeast in Venezuela; project investigators anticipate additional similar discoveries. They will survey the flora on selected sandstone and adjacent non-sandstone areas at different elevations and will install permanent study areas to examine the habitat preferences of plants growing on different underlying soils. The project will produce a wealth of information on the flora of the region, including collections of many species new to science and checklists and species distribution maps of the region's flora to be distributed over the Internet. Drawing on these findings, project investigators will analyze the relationship between variations in plant composition and factors such as elevation and underlying soils. They will also examine the biogeographical linkages between the Cordillera del Condor and the Guayana region. The project results will provide information needed to guide selection of protected areas, to be established under a major conservation initiative launched recently in the Cordillera del Condor region by the Ecuadorian and Peruvian governments with participation by non-governmental conservation organizations and the indigenous communities that inhabit the region, the Shuar in Ecuador and Aguaruna in Peru. In addition, the project's general inventory surveys and permanent study areas will provide training and research opportunities for Ecuadorian and Peruvian undergraduate students and representatives of the native Shuar inhabitants of the region.