Abstract

CRUZ-CARDENAS, Gustavo; VILLASENOR, José Luis; LOPEZ-MATA, Lauro  and  ORTIZ, Enrique. Spatial distribution of species richness of vascular plants in Mexico. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2013, vol.84, n.4, pp.1189-1199. ISSN 2007-8706.  https://doi.org/10.7550/rmb.31811.

In many fields of biology, information on species richness and geographic distribution is essential for decision-making. However, Mexico as many other countries does not has this information at national level; therefore we consider important to generate information about of the distribution of species richness both known and estimated at national level. In order to fulfill this objective and through the use of 2 geostatistical techniques (Kriging universal and Co-Kriging), we performed the spatial prediction of species richness from information contained in cells of 1° x 1°. Results showed the occurrence of areas in Mexico with richness varying from 20 to 3 800 species. The states with the highest number of species are Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca. The 2 geostatistical techniques employed showed to be efficient tools to estimate spatial predictions of species richness.

Keywords : geostatistics; biotaxon; environmental predictors; regression-kriging.