Plant Conservation and Biodiversity TOPICS IN BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION Volume 6 The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume. Plant Conservation and Biodiversity Edited by David L. Hawksworth and Alan T. Bull Reprinted from Biodiversity and Conservation, volume 16:6 (2007) 123 A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-4020-6443-2 (HB) ISBN 978-1-4020-6444-9 (e-book) Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. www.springer.com Cover Photo: Gustavia augusta L. (Lecythidaceae) a common riverside tree in Amazonia. Photographed at Lago Janauaca´, near Manaus, Amazonas Brazil in August 2006. This genus of the Brazil nut family was named by Linnaeus after King Gustav III of Sweden. The photograph was supplied by Professor Sir Ghillean Prance FRS, VMH. Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved (cid:2) 2007 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photo- copying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission fromthePublisher,withtheexceptionofanymaterialsuppliedspecificallyfor thepurposeofbeingenteredandexecutedonacomputersystem,forexclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Contents Plant Conservation and Biodiversity C. M. GHERSA, S. B. PERELMAN, S. E. BURKART and R. J. C. LEÓN / Floristic and structural changes related to opportunistic soil tilling and pasture planting in grassland communities of the Flooding Pampa 1–18 CARLOS E. VALDIVIAand JAVIER A. SIMONETTI / Decreased frugivory and seed germination rate do not reduce seedling recruitment rates of Aristotelia chilensisin a fragmented forest 19–28 G. KAZAKIS, D. GHOSN, I. N. VOGIATZAKIS and V. P. PAPANASTASIS / Vascular plant diversity and climate change in the alpine zone of the Lefka Ori, Crete 29–41 BETTINAHEIDER, MEIKE S. ANDERSSON and RAINER SCHULTZE-KRAFT / RAPD variation among North Vietnamese Flemingia macrophylla (Willd.) Kuntze ex Merr. accessions 43–57 – – TAMARA TICKTIN, HO‘ALA FRAIOLA and A. NAMAKA WHITEHEAD / Non-timber forest product harvesting in alien-dominated forests: effects of frond-harvest and rainfall on the demography of two native Hawaiian ferns 59–77 PATRICIACOLUNGA-GARCÍAMARÍN and DANIELZIZUMBO-VILLARREAL/ Tequila and other Agave spirits from west-central Mexico: current germplasm diversity, conservation and origin 79–93 ALEJANDRAJUÁREZ, PABLO ORTEGA-BAES, SILVIASÜHRING, WALTER MARTIN and GUADALUPE GALÍNDEZ / Spatial patterns of dicot diversity in Argentina 95–103 HELLE OVERGAARD LARSEN and CARSTEN SMITH OLSEN / Unsustainable collection and unfair trade? Uncovering and assessing assumptions regarding Central Himalayan medicinal plant conservation 105–123 ADEMIR R. RUSCHEL, RUBENS O. NODARI and BRUNO M. MOER- SCHBACHER / Woody plant species richness in the Turvo State park, a large remnant of deciduous Atlantic forest, Brazil 125–140 MARCO MANZELLI, LUCA PILERI, NADIA LACERENZA, STEFANO BENEDETTELLI and VINCENZO VECCHIO / Genetic diversity assessment in Somali sorghum (Sorghum bicolor(L.) Moench) accessions using microsatellite markers 141–156 HONGMEI LI, T. MITCHELL AIDE, YOUXIN MA, WENJUN LIU and MIN CAO / Demand for rubber is causing the loss of high diversity rain forest in SWChina 157–171 WAYNE LAW and JAN SALICK / Comparing conservation priorities for useful plants among botanists and Tibetan doctors 173–185 JOSÉ ALDO A. PEREIRA, ARY T. OLIVEIRA-FILHO and JOSÉ P. LEMOS-FILHO / Environmental heterogeneity and disturbance by humans control much of the tree species diversity of Atlantic montane forest fragments in SE Brazil 187–210 K. J. HALME and R. E. BODMER / Correspondence between scientific and traditional ecological knowledge: rain forest classification by the non-indigenous ribereños in Peruvian Amazonia 211–227 v vi RAÚL CONTRERAS-MEDINA and ISOLDA LUNA-VEGA / Species richness, endemism and conservation of Mexican gymnosperms 229–247 G. M. FREDRIKSSON, L. S. DANIELSEN and J. E. SWENSON / Impacts of El Niño related drought and forest fires on sun bear fruit resources in lowland dipterocarp forest of East Borneo 249–264 YUAN-WEN DUAN and JIAN-QUAN LIU / Pollinator shift and reproductive performance of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau endemic and endangered Swertia przewalskii(Gentianaceae) 265–276 MUKUNDADEVBEHERAand SATYAPRAKASH SINGH KUSHWAHA/ An analysis of altitudinal behavior of tree species in Subansiri district, Eastern Himalaya 277–291 X. SCHELDEMAN, L. WILLEMEN, G. COPPENS D’EECKENBRUGGE, E. ROMEIJN-PEETERS, M. T. RESTREPO, J. ROMERO MOTOCHE, D. JIMÉNEZ, M. LOBO, C. I. MEDINA, C. REYES, D. RODRÍGUEZ, J. A. OCAMPO, P. VAN DAMME and P. GOETGEBEUR / Distribution, diversity and environmental adaptation of highland papayas (Vasconcellea spp.) in tropical and subtropical America 293–310 ELOY SOLANO and T. PATRICIA FERIA / Ecological niche modeling and geographic distribution of the genus PolianthesL. (Agavaceae) in Mexico: using niche modeling to improve assessments of risk status 311–326 JOHN R. S. TABUTI / The uses, local perceptions and ecological status of 16 woody species of Gadumire Sub-county, Uganda 327–341 M. IRFAN-ULLAH, GIRIRAJ AMARNATH, M. S. R. MURTHY and A. TOWNSEND PETERSON / Mapping the geographic distribution of Aglaia bourdilloniiGamble (Meliaceae), an endemic and threatened plant, using ecological niche modeling 343–351 MARTIN RICKER, ILIANA RAMÍREZ-KRAUSS, GUILLERMO IBARRA- MANRÍQUEZ, ESTEBAN MARTÍNEZ, CLARA H. RAMOS, GUADALUPE GONZÁLEZ-MEDELLÍN, GABRIELA GÓMEZ- RODRÍGUEZ, JOSÉ LUIS PALACIO-PRIETO and HÉCTOR M. HERNÁNDEZ / Optimizing conservation of forest diversity: a country-wide approach in Mexico 353–383 DAVID MELICK, XUEFEI YANG and JIANCHU XU / Seeing the wood for the trees: how conservation policies can place greater pressure on village forests in southwest China 385–397 MARIELAGUILAR-STØEN and STEIN R. MOE / Medicinal plant conservation and management: distribution of wild and cultivated species in eight countries 399–407 XIAO LEI JIANG, WEI GUO ZHANG and GANG WANG / Biodiversity effects on biomass production and invasion resistance in annual versus perennial plant communities 409–420 BiodiversConserv(2007)16 -1 Introduction Plant conservation and biodiversity ThisbookbringstogetheraselectionoforiginalstudiessubmittedtoBiodiversity and Conservation addressing aspects of the conservation and biodiversity of plants.Plantsare,alongwithterrestrialvertebrates,thebestknownorganismson Earth, and so work on them can be a model for that on less known organism groups. Further, plants are crucial to the maintenance of atmospheric composi- tion, nutrient cycling, and other ecosystem processes. In addition they provide habitats and food for myriads of dependent organisms. At the same time, plants are exploited for food and fuel by humans, and forests continue to be felled for the timber trade or to provide more grazing for cattle. As individual plants are not mobile, and often co-exist as parts of complex plant communities, they are also particularly vulnerable to global climate and other ecological changes. The contributions are drawn mainly from tropical and subtropical countries, especially Central and South America and Asia, and collectively provide a snap- shot of the types of issues and concerns in plant conservation in these regions today. The subjects treated range from effects of climate and habitat changes, including effects of alterations in management and major fires, through the ex- ploitation of forests for medicinal plant and other products as well of trees, to genetic variation within endangered or exploited species, and factors affecting seed production and germination. This series of themed issues aims to provide an indication of current research activities across this wide range of topics, examples of issues of current concern, that will make the book especially valuable for use in conservation biology courses. They can be viewed as a series of case studies that will expose students to primary research being conducted now. As such they will complement the necessarily less-detailed information available in textbooks and review articles. DAVIDL. HAWKSWORTH Editor-in-Chief,BiodiversityandConservation UniversidadComplutensedeMadrid; TheNaturalHistoryMuseum,London 25April2007 123 vii BiodiversityandConservation(2007)16:1575–1592 (cid:2)Springer2006 DOI10.1007/s10531-006-9002-4 Floristic and structural changes related to opportunistic soil tilling and pasture planting in grassland communities of the Flooding Pampa C.M. GHERSA*, S.B. PERELMAN, S.E.BURKART andR.J.C. LEO´ N IFEVA(CONICET)–FacultaddeAgronomı´a,UniversidaddeBuenosAires,Av.SanMartı´n4453, C1417DSE,BuenosAires,Argentina;*Authorforcorrespondence(e-mail:[email protected];fax: +54-11-4514-8730) Received7December2004;acceptedinrevisedform5May2005 Keywords: Biodiversity, Ecological impact, Grassland communities, Landscape diversity, Old pastures,Soiltilling Abstract. TheFloodingPampanaturalgrasslandhas anintricatepatternofplantcommunities, relatedtosmalltopographicdifferencesthatdetermineimportantchangesinsoilcharacteristics. Despite limitations imposedby soil properties and periodicwaterlogging, opportunistic tillingis carriedouttoplantpastures.Thereislittleinformationonhowpastureplantingmayaffectthe structure of the grassland communities. In order to document changes caused by cultural activitieson structural and functional characteristics of plant communities in this landscape,we made field surveys in grasslands and very old pastures (grassland communities recovered through secondary succession) using transects located across existing topographic gradients.The patchystructureof thislandscapewasrevealedby the multivariateanalysis, by means ofwhich four plant communities could be identified in the natural grassland. Species composition of thesecommunitiesdifferedfromthatof thecorresponding oldpastures.Theylost animportant number of exclusive species, but also gained species: some new to the landscape and many already present in other environments.Pasture planting reduced the rate of species replacements along the gradient and produced changes in patchiness, but had no effect on the species–area curve at the landscape scale. Neither did we find differences in total number of species, average number of species/site and proportion of functional types. The new grassland created by opportunistic pasture planting has developed into a structural gradient in which important differences occurred in the lower waterlogged-prone stands, whereas the sites of the other communities experienced less structural changes. Introduction The Flooding Pampa grasslands in eastern Argentina cover 90,000 km2 of an extremely flat area with poorly drained soils, which have been extensively modified by anthropogenic disturbances (Chaneton et al. 2002). This natural grassland is heterogeneous and characterized by well-defined plant communi- ties that are strongly correlated with the small topographic differences deter- mining dramatic changes in soil characteristics (Soriano 1992; Perelman et al. 2001). Cattle husbandry on unfertilized natural grasslands has been the main activity in this area, which increased species richness in most of the plant 1576 communities by enhancing invasion of exotics, but also reduced the compo- sitional and functional heterogeneity of the vegetation at landscape scale (Chaneton et al. 2002). Technological improvements and need to increase the economic revenue of the land is continually pushing ranchers to replace this traditional practice of extensive low input grazing of natural grasslands, by intensive grazing of planted pastures and, in some cases, even cropping of annual species (Cahuepe´ et al. 1982; Oesterheld and Leo´n 1987; De Leo´n and Cauhepe´ 1988; Soriano 1992; Gerschman et al. 2003). For this reason, de- spite the limitations imposed by soil properties and periodic water logging, opportunistic tilling is carried out to plant pastures, which may remain grazed and without replanting for very long periods of time. Although there are no patterns, these periods frequently extend to 10 years or more, and fields with pastures older than 50 years are not difficult to find. The sec- ondary succession developing after pasture planting in the regions better drained soils has been described in detail (Leo´n and Oesterheld, 1982; Oesterheld and Leo´n 1987). These authors studied changes in floristic composition, plant soil cover and specific productivity, finding that in a 15– 18-year period the community recovers almost all of its original species and the dominance of Stipa charruana.Yet there is still very little information on how pasture planting may affect the structure of the grassland communities as a consequence of alterations in soil–plant relationships and plant-to-plant interactions. Tilling causes dramatic changes in the physical and chemical properties of the topsoil. Layers with different pH, salt and organic matter contents are mixed, and tilling machinery produces soil compaction, that may be aggravated later by cattle trampling. Flooding may revert some of these changes in soil properties, and this reversion is followed by the sec- ondary succession that operates once tilling of the soil disappears (Lavado et al. 1992; Chaneton et al. 2002). Changes in the succesional pathways initiated by opportunistic pasture planting may induce important changes in nutrient and water cycle within the ecosystem, strongly modifying its properties (Wedin 1995; Wedin and Tilman 1996; Quinos et al. 1998). In this study we made field surveys in natural grasslands and very old pas- tures,usingtransectslocatedacrossexistingtopographicgradients,inorderto document the changes caused by cultural activities on the structural and functional characteristics of the plant communities in a landscape of the FloodingPampagrassland.Weexpectthatopportunisticpastureplantingwill expandthenarrowecotonesseparatingpatchesofthenaturalgrassland,which makeapparentthediscretelimitsbetweenstandsofthedifferentcommunities. Therefore, the natural patchy pattern of the grassland will change into a vegetation gradient following the small topographic differences, especially reducing the compositional and functional heterogeneity of the vegetation at landscape scale.