Fenología de seis especies forestales y calidad de semillas en dos bosques altoandinos del Macizo del Cajas, provincia del Azuay

Abstract

Ecuador in the last years has promoted reforestation programs. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the ecology of native tree species for contributing to the success of these programs. The aim of this study was to monitor the phenology of six native tree species (Hedyosmum luteynii, Ocotea heterochroma, Oreocallis grandiflora, Myrcianthes rhopaloides, Vallea stipularis and Weinmannia fagaroides) in Llaviucu and Mazan forests in the Cajas National Park. We selected eight tree individuals per each species, all of them had a good phenotypic traits and they were evaluated every 15 days recording flowering and fruiting across six months. Moreover, another aim was to compare germination capacity among tree individuals and between forests of the following species O. grandiflora, O. heterochroma and M. rhopaloides. The results showed that two groups of species were formed. M. rhopaloides, O. grandiflora and W. fagaroides had a similar tendency of flowering and fruiting events between both forests, while H. luteynii y O. heterochroma had a markable difference for flowering phenophase and V. stipularis differs in flowering and fruiting between forests. Regarding to the germination capacity of three native tree species, the results did not show differences between forests, which means that the germination response was similar in Llaviucu and Mazán. However, the tree individuals as another factor of analysis, we found a high variation in percentage of germination for O. heterochroma and M. rhopaloides species, but not for O. grandiflora. The main contributions of this study are to provide phenological calendars for seed collection, to identify the best tree individuals as tree sources for seedling production and to evaluate the seed quality of our native tree species, all of these aspects for restoration purposes.