Determinación de la cantidad de carbono almacenado en la vegetación herbácea del Bosque de Polylepis en la Reserva de Producción de Fauna Chimborazo.

Abstract

The present research proposes: to determine the amount of carbon stored in the herbaceous vegetation of Polylepis Forest in the Chimborazo Fauna Production Reserve, the process began with the validation of the herbaceous vegetation inventory of the Polylepis Forest, through macro quadrants of ( 10x10 m) and micro quadrants of (1x1 m) applying the methodology of (Mostacedo and Fredericksen 2000) Sampling and Analysis in Plant Ecology where it was obtained that the diversity of herbaceous vegetation is composed of 10 orders, 11 families and 19 species, the most representative families are Asteraceae, in the valuation of the ethnobotanical use of the species of herbaceous vegetation, it is worked with the methodological proposal of (Cook 1995) and where the species were classified by categories of use, the most used category was for medicines which reaches a percentage of 47.04% considering itself in a scale of very important valuation and finally, the amount of carbon stored in the herbaceous vegetation of Polylepis Forest was quantified by applying formulas for the calculation of carbon proposed by (Aguirre & Aguirre 2004) Guide to monitor Biomass and carbon dynamics in forest ecosystems in Ecuador, where the species of herbaceous vegetation of the Polylepis Forest that stores the largest amount of carbon is Calamagrostis intermedia with 185g while the species that stores the least amount of carbon is Bomarea uncifolia with an amount of 57,5g. It is concluded that it is very important to know the functioning and structure of the plant species in the ecosystem and in this way generate proposals aimed at the conversation of biodiversity. Key words: Herbaceous Vegetation - Organic Carbon - Vegetable Species – Biodiversity