Páramo Ecosystems in Ecuador’s Southern Region: Conservation State and Restoration

Abstract

The páramo is home to a significant proportion of global biodiversity and provides essential services for the development of life for millions of people in Ecuador. However, land use/land cover (LULC) changes threaten biodiversity and modify its functioning. The objectives of this study were: (1) to evaluate the conservation status of the herbaceous páramo (HP) ecosystem by analyzing its LULC in Ecuador’s southern region. (2) to identify possible regions where the native páramo ecosystem is being restored. We analyzed Landsat 8 images using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and a Classifier Decision Tree (CDT) to achieve these objectives. The results show that the native herbaceous páramo (NHP) ecosystem is being transformed into an anthropogenic HP (AHP). The area covered by the NHP ecosystem (296,964 ha) has been reduced by 50% (149,834 ha). Nevertheless, we identified five regions where the NHP is upgrading. These regions are relevant for studying NHP regeneration in Ecuador’s southern region, where soils are mostly andosols. The LU of the páramo, with cycles of exploitation, abandonment, and regeneration in a secondary páramo, is transforming the NHP ecosystem. These exploitation practices, global climate change, and lack of knowledge about the NHP ecosystem’s regeneration and its soils’ recovery threaten to substantially reduce the NHP area, its functionality, and its ecosystem services.

Effects of Low-Severity Fire on Soil Physico-Chemical Properties in an Andean Páramo in Southern Ecuador

“…According to Bodí et al [57], this color indicates incomplete combustion of vegetation, including uncharred organic particles, caused by dehydration and oxidation of iron components. Fires of moderate to high severity are infrequent in AnPs due to the cool and humid weather conditions, which is why soils are generally saturated [76]. However, even low-severity fires could inhibit the regeneration of the AnP ecosystem when heavy rains occur after burning, which enhance erosive processes, causing the loss of the topsoil layer where organic matter and nutrients are concentrated.…”

Improvement of Region-Merging Image Segmentation Accuracy Using Multiple Merging Criteria

“…3 Cycle arc can be understood as an abstract adjacency relationship between regions. 4 N is the number of over-segmented initial regions.…”

“…Object-based image analysis (OBIA) has been widely used in the past two decades, such as in urban-land-cover mapping [1][2][3], ecological monitoring [4][5][6], disaster evaluation [7][8][9], and crop-type identification [10][11][12]. In recent years, OBIA has also been incorporated into the deep learning model to capture the precise outlines of ground objects and model spatial-context relationships [13][14][15].…”

Comprehensive inventory of páramo birds and their habitat affinities in a conservation hotspot, the Macizo del Cajas Biosphere Reserve, southern Ecuador

“…Located above the high-montane Andean Forest treeline, the páramo harbours important endemic, restricted-range bird species, and a high concentration of threatened species (Stattersfield et al 1998, Mena-Vásconez & Hofstede 2006, Jiménez-Rivillas et al 2018. The influence of local environmental variation and climatic conditions over the páramo gives rise to several habitat types with distinct characteristics, such as tussock grasses, ground rosettes, cushion páramo, woody shrubs, or Polylepis woodlands (Sklenár & Ramsay 2001, García et al 2020, which in turn lead to processes of habitat adaptation and specialization in páramo birds (Norambuena & Van Els 2021). Combined, these páramo habitats harbour the important bird diversity across the region.…”