IDENTITY OF THE MONTANE GRASSLANDS IN THE SOUTHERN CENTRAL ANDES

CLAUDIA M. MARTÍN; LONE AAGESEN

Buenos Aires

Congreso; 35th Annual Meeting of the Willi Hennig Society and XII Reunión Argentina de Cladística y Biogeografia; 2016

Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia"

Understanding thedistribution patterns of taxa in a given region, such as defining areas ofendemism, allow testing classic - or not so classic - biogeographic schemes. Inthe Southern Cone, the montane grasslands of Cabrera are distributeddiscontinuously from 18°S to about 30°S, on the eastern slopes of the CentralAndes, between 1500 to 3500 m a.s.l. According to the classic biogeographical schemeof Cabrera, these grasslands are the top floor of the Tucumano-Bolivian Yungasvegetation. However, in recent years several authors have suggested a closerrelationship with the Humid Puna of Bolivia, or the high Andean Paramo of theNorthern Andes. Nevertheless, to date no contributions have explicitly analyzedthis vegetation. Here, we analyze the distribution patterns of 700 vascularplants (32 orders of angiosperms, gymnosperms, ferns, and lycophytes) that werecollected in montane grasslands in a study area of about 53,000 km2.We aim to assess whether these grasslands have their own identity, whether theyform one or more distribution patterns, or areas of endemism, and whether theseareas in turn are part of broader distribution pattern - such as theTucumano-Bolivian Yungas, the High Andes, or other biogeographic units. Foranalysis; we used cells of different sizes (0.5° - 0.2°) and shapes (square andrectangular) using the NDM / VNDM program that applies an optimality criterionfor the identification of areas of endemism.