A comprehensive checklist of vascular epiphytes of the Atlantic Forest reveals outstanding endemic rates

Abstract

Knowledge of the geographic distribution of plants is essential to underpin the understanding of global biodiversity patterns. Vascular epiphytes are important components of diversity and functionality of Neotropical forests but, unlike their terrestrial counterparts, they are under-represented in large-scale diversity and biogeographic analyses. This is the case for the Atlantic Forest - one of the most diverse and threatened biomes worldwide. We provide the first comprehensive species list of Atlantic Forest vascular epiphytes; their endemism patterns and threatened species occurrence have also been analyzed. A list with 2,256 species of (hemi-)epiphytes - distributed in 240 genera and 33 families - is presented based on the updated Brazilian Flora Checklist. This represents more than 15% of the total vascular plant richness in the Atlantic Forest. Moreover, 256 species are included on the Brazilian Red List. More than 93% of the overall richness is concentrated in ten families, with 73% represented by Orchidaceae and Bromeliaceae species alone. A total of 78% of epiphytic species are endemic to the Atlantic Forest, in contrast to overall vascular plant endemism in this biome estimated at 57%. Among the non-endemics, 13% of epiphytic species also occur either in the Amazon or in the Cerrado - the other two largest biomes of Brazil – and only 8% are found in two or more Brazilian biomes. This pattern of endemism, in addition to available dated phylogenies of some genera, indicate the dominance of recent radiations of epiphytic groups in the Atlantic Forest, showing that the majority of divergences dating from the Pliocene onwards are similar to those that were recently reported for other Neotropical plants.

Vascular epiphytic flora of a high montane environment of Brazilian Atlantic Forest: composition and floristic relationships with other ombrophilous forests

“…The species richness of each evolutionary lineage is similar to that observed in the Atlantic Forest (Kersten 2010;Freitas et al 2016), although the proportion of representation of each is different. We found a lower percentage of monocotyledons (approximately 46% in the PESP versus approximately 64% for the Atlantic Forest) and a higher percentage of monilophytes (approximately 29% in the PESP versus approximately 16% for the Atlantic Forest).…”

“…Despite Orchidaceae, Polypodiaceae, Bromeliaceae, Araceae and Piperaceae are the five richest families in epiphytes in Atlantic domain (Kersten 2010;Freitas et al 2016) and Neotropical region (Gentry & Dodson 1987) as well as at the global level (Zotz 2013), the contribution of each family in this study was different. When considering the physiognomy of MOF only, the first three families also are the richest.…”

“…However, despite the increasing number of studies on flora and ecology of epiphytes, especially in recent years, there is still a shortage, when considering their ecological importance in the tropical forests (Nadkarni 1984;Nieder et al 2000). Although Brazil has a considerable richness of epiphytes, mainly due to the forest physiognomies of the BAF (Freitas et al 2016;Menini Neto et al 2016), studies of the epiphytic synusia only have been intensive during the past 30 years, mainly concentrating in the Southern Region of the country (Kersten 2010). In order to contribute to the reduction of knowledge gaps regarding this functional group in the Atlantic Forest, the goals of this study were: 1) to evaluate the richness and composition of the vascular epiphytes in the physiognomy of MOF and in the ecotone with DOF in the PESP; 2) to analyse the floristic relationships, and respective influence of environmental variables, between areas of the Southeastern and Southern regions of Brazil with similar vegetation; 3) to test whether the pattern of floristic relationships of trees and shrubs found in MOF of Serra da Mantiqueira and those of Southern Region is corroborated by epiphytic flora.…”

Epífitas vasculares da Estação Ecológica Barreiro Rico, Anhembi, SP, Brasil: diversidade, abundância e estratificação vertical

“…No caso da Bromeliaceae, além do endemismo neotropical da família (Versieux & Wendt 2006, Freitas et al 2016), a presença de características adaptativas como os tanques formados pelas folhas, fazem com que sejam bem adaptadas a ambientes secos e com maior exposição à luz (Smith 1986) apresentando, por vezes, maior diversidade em floresta secundária do que em floresta primária (Barthlott et al 2001). A família Cactaceae, que foi a segunda mais abundante neste estudo, ocorre quase exclusivamente na região neotropical, apresentando grande diversidade, sendo registradas mais de 1.400 espécies, além disso, suas espécies possuem grande resistência ao estresse hídrico, devida às adaptações fisiológicas e morfológicas, como metabolismo CAM e a presença de caules suculentos (Hunt et al 2006).…”

“…Kersten (2010), considerando apenas a Floresta Atlântica indicou que cerca de 60% das epífitas deste ambiente pertencem a Orchidaceae, Bromeliaceae e Polypodiaceae. No entanto, Freitas et al (2016) afirmam que mais de 93% da riqueza de epífitas na Floresta Atlântica estão concentradas em dez famílias, sendo 73% das espécies pertencentes a Orchidaceae e Bromeliaceae. No Brasil, o número de espécies pode variar desde poucas em florestas como o Cerrado (Ishara et al 2008), até centenas de espécies em florestas úmidas, como nos levantamentos realizados em Floresta Atlântica (Kersten & Kuniyoshi 2009, Blum et al 2011, Bianchi et al 2012, Alves & Menini Neto 2014.…”