Evaluación de la regeneración natural y su relación con la altitud y cobertura de dosel en plantaciones no manejadas de pinus patula en zonas alto andinas, en la provincia del Azuay

Abstract

The reforestation has been conducted with great intensity especially in the Ecuadorian highlands, forming the forestry plantations. These plantations at the local level become uncertain, due to the presence of high or low biodiversity, which must initially be evaluated through the natural regeneration of vascular species. This way in the present study described the natural regeneration and its relationship with environmental variables and tree cover in forest plantations of Pinus patula in high Andean zones, in the province of Azuay. Information was lifted from the permanent sampling plots where woody and herbaceous species were described in terms of wealth, diversity, abundance and dominance. These parameters were evaluated at the level of altitudinal floors (C1 = 2700 - 3100 m.snm, C2 = 3100 – 3500 m.snm y C3 = >3500 m.snm) using the Kruskall-Wallis non-parametric test (P < 0.05).The normality of the information was verified by the statistical test of Shapiro – Wills (P <0.05). There was correlated the environmental variables, arboreal coverage, index of area to foliate and chemical soil parameters across interrelations not parametrics of Spearman (P <0.05). On the first altitudinal floor (C1) were recorded higher values in the indices of richness and Shannon, while on the floor of higher altitude (C3) found higher values in abundance of herbaceous. As for the dominance was equal for the three altitudinal floors for the herbaceous and woody species. According to the importance value index (IVI) the most important species were ecologically: Peperomia sp, Oxalis elegans, Miconia sp., Eucrosia sp., in C1 and C2; Lachemilla Orbiculata, and Paspalum bonplandianum on the C3 floor. The arboreal coverage, the Calcium, Magnesium, Iron and pH it was correlated positively with the richness of woody. It is concluded that natural regeneration in forest plantations can be a positive strategy for the restoration of floristic diversity in high Andean ecosystems.