Vascular epiphytism on the Sinos River riparian forest: phytosociological and conservation analysis

Abstract

The site with the greatest epiphyte richness also presented great floristic heterogeneity, and located in a rural area, at a higher region where the type of forest is wetter and there is greater rainfall. Vriesea incurvata presented the highest VI in CA, Pleopeltis pleopeltifolia in TA and Rhipsalis teres in CB. Thirteen of the species are endangered, and 12 of which were found in CA. The botanical parameters obtained support the idea that the riparian forest of CA presents a more complex community structure, with a higher degree of conservation and better environmental quality, when compared to the TA and CB sites.

Edge effect on vascular epiphytes in a subtropical Atlantic Forest fragment

“…The number of species was approximately twice that inventoried in other fragments of similar size in the same river basin (Barbosa et al, 2015;Rocha-Uriartt et al, 2015), and in an area of transition between seasonal semideciduous forest and Araucaria-forest in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (Bernardi & Budke, 2010), which recorded around 20 species. The found predominance of true holoepiphytes, corresponding to 85% of all vascular epiphytic species inventoried, is a common trend in studies on epiphytes (Bernardi & Budke, 2010;Barbosa et al, 2015;Rocha-Uriartt et al, 2015;Graeff et al, 2015;Rocha-Uriartt et al, 2021). True holoepiphytes possess more specialized and diversified adaptations (see Rocha et al, 2013;Rocha et al, 2014) that favor a generalized distribution in different forest formations (Staudt et al, 2012), including the studied environments.…”

Translocation of the epiphytic bromeliad Vriesea incurvata: an efficient tool for biodiversity restoration in the Atlantic Forest

“…For epiphytes, the access to water resources occurs via precipitation or atmospheric uptake, and plant evapotranspiration increases with low levels of relative air humidity, which limits survival during periods of water deficiency (Zotz et al, 2004). Though V. incurvata occurs both in FI and GF, the absolute number of individuals (Fischer and Araujo, 1995) and the importance value (Bonnet and Queiroz, 2006;Rocha-Uriartt et al, 2021) of the species are higher in the latter environment, suggesting that it is conducive to the establishment of the plant. The greater diversity and abundance of bromeliads near watercourses are attributed to the high humidity of this environment (Fischer and Araujo, 1995) which, together with the availability of light, is an important factor responsible for the distribution of these plants (Pittendrigh, 1948;Benzing, 1990).…”

“…Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate the survival and development of V. incurvata plants propagated in vitro and translocated to an At-lantic Forest fragment in South Brazil, analyzing their responses to luminosity, temperature, relative air humidity and precipitation. Considering that the species is abundant in gallery forest (GF) environments (Fischer and Araujo, 1995;Bonnet and Queiroz, 2006;Rocha-Uriartt et al, 2021), the hypothesis of this study was that the establishment of young plants is more effective in GF than in the forest interior (FI). This is the first experimental trial for the establishment of epiphytic tank bromeliads as a strategy for conservation and enrichment of biodiversity in degraded forest environments.…”