A first checklist to the vascular plants of La Amistad International Park (PILA), Costa Rica-Panama

Abstract

La Amistad International Park is a World Heritage Site, which comprises 401,000 ha of mainly upland continuous natural vegetation straddling the Costa Rica and Panama border. We present a first checklist of vascular plant diversity for the park and a brief discussion of how this diversity is distributed by elevation and vegetation type together with a superficial assessment of floristic affinities. The checklist recognises 3,046 vascular plant species, 26 of which are lycopods, 433 are ferns and 2,586 are seed plants. Of these, 16 are new records for Costa Rica and 39 are for the flora of Panama; 14 represent undescribed or new species to science and 73 are endemic to La Amistad or its buffer zone. For each species we document its presence within the Park by citing herbarium specimens and the associated elevational range, together with their global distribution, extinction risk assessments where undertaken, whether the taxon is exotic.

Why continue with floristic checklists in Mexico? The case of the Tacaná-Boquerón Priority Terrestrial Region, in the Mexican State of Chiapas

“…Except for some variations, the order of importance of taxonomic families (Orchidaceae, Asteraceae, Rubiaceae, and Fabaceae) matches reports of other mountain areas in Mexico (Villaseñor 2016) and Mesoamerica (Martínez-Meléndez et al 2008, Monro et al 2017. We report 326 species of Orchidaceae.…”

“…The latter estimations are important considering that the study area represents less than 1 % of the state's territory. The area of the Tacaná-Boquerón is smaller than other areas in Mexico where plant species richness is high (see Table 3), such as the Selva Lacandona (Martínez et al 1994), Sierra de Manantlán (Vázquez & Cuevas 1995), Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley (Dávila et al 2002), La Amistad International Park (Monro et al 2017), and Los Tuxtlas (Villaseñor et al 2018).…”

“…It is noteworthy that orchid species richness accounts for 21 % of the total orchids listed for Mexico (Soto-Arenas et al 2007). Orchidaceae is the most important taxonomic family in the list of Monro et al (2017) for mountain forests of Costa Rica and Panama. In mountain systems, orchids as well as other taxonomic families with epiphyte habit (e.g., Bromeliaceae, Polypodiaceae, Piperaceae) develop well because of suitable conditions (e.g., high precipitation rates, constant humidity, in a wide elevation gradient), which also favor high speciation rates (Givnish et al 2015).…”

Are landscape attributes a useful shortcut for classifying vegetation in the tropics? A case study of La Amistad International Park

“…, Borge ) with ca 3100 species of vascular plants (Monro et al . in press). PILA exhibits a rainfall gradient which ranges from 2000 to 2500 mm on the Pacific slopes and 4000 to 6000–7000 mm on the Caribbean slopes (Herrera , Autoridad Nacional Del Ambiente , Borge ).…”

The elusive Sobralia amabilis (Orchidacae): a range extension of its distribution to Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, with notes on its habitat

“…Across its distributional range, Sobralia amabilis occurs in montane forests at elevations between 900 m to 3100 m like the Cordillera of Chiquirí, Panama and the Cordillera de Talamanca, Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, the orchid can be found on various volcanoes and natural reserves with lower montane rain forests (Bogarín et al 2014, GBIF.org 2019, Monro et al 2017, Pupulin 2010. Sobralia amabilis was reported at Volcán Mombacho, Granada, Nicaragua (GBIF.org 2019).…”