Abstract

ACATITLA PLUMA, Oscar; VILLAMIL CARRERA, Cora  and  MARTINEZ Y PEREZ, José Luis. Commercial importance of mosses in Tlaxcala state, Mexico. Madera bosques [online]. 2020, vol.26, n.3, e2632031.  Epub Feb 17, 2021. ISSN 2448-7597.  https://doi.org/10.21829/myb.2020.2632031.

Mosses represent a non-timber forest resource with economic importance in Central Mexico during Christmas season. Some places and species have been studied but in Tlaxcala state there is no information about the origin, quantity harvested, and species with commercial importance in this season. For this reason, licenses for commercial harvest for the years 2005 to 2008 from Secretaría de Medioambiente y Recursos Naturales-Tlaxcala were reviewed, and four farms were visited to recollect mosses on three 20 cm × 20 cm samples, and three samples were purchased in local markets of the main cities in Tlaxcala state for complementary information. Surface area and fresh weight were calculated only with market samples and compared with commercial licenses. The Tlaxco region had most of the licenses, and in general the declared area for commercial harvesting is from 10 ha to 167 ha and the fresh weight is from 10 t to 65 t. The commercial value of the samples in the markets for the size is from 22 MXN/m2 to 52 MXN/m2 and for the calculated fresh weight is of 15.89 MXN/kg to 64.10 MXN/kg, with a commercial value calculated of 372 500 MXN/ha, 40 000 MXN/t; from the harvesting licenses, ot was determined that there is an annual extraction capacity of 1.63 t/ha. From the samples recollected in the field and the markets a total of 14 species has been identified, detecting that Thuidium delicatulum subsp. delicatulum is common in all samples, but Hypnum amabile is present only in the samples from the markets.

Keywords : bryophyta; species; forests; markets; sale.