Abstract

PALMAS-PEREZ, Sebastián; KROMER, Thorsten; DRESSLER, Stefan  and  AREVALO-RAMIREZ, José A.. Diversity and distribution of Marcgraviaceae in Mexico. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2013, vol.84, n.1, pp.170-183. ISSN 2007-8706.  https://doi.org/10.7550/rmb.29666.

The neotropical family Marcgraviaceae includes about 140 species of woody climbers. The objectives of this study are to review the diversity of the Marcgraviaceae in Mexico, to map and analyze the current and potential distribution of each species occurring in Mexico. Therefore, a review of 221 collections in 15 national and 9 foreign herbaria was conducted. The modeling of the potential distribution was performed with the Maxent software, using the geographic coordinates of the specimens reviewed plus 19 environmental variables. We recorded Marcgravia brownei, M. mexicana, M. nepenthoides, M. stonei, Ruyschia enervia, Souroubea exauriculata and S. loczyi subsp. loczyi. We also present the first record of M. pittieri for Mexico. The species are distributed in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tabasco, and Veracruz, where they mainly occur in tropical lowland forest and cloud forest. Los Tuxtlas region, the Sierra Norte de Oaxaca, and eastern Chiapas can be considered of high importance for the conservation of the family in Mexico. Despite the alarming rate of destruction of their natural habitats, we consider that none of these species need to be classified under any of the IUCN categories due to their number of occurences in Mexico and other neotropical countries.

Keywords : tropical forest; conservation status; IUCN Red List; Maxent; Marcgravia; Ruyschia; Souroubea; taxonomic review.