Inventario florístico del bosque nativo "Polylepis), en la parroquia Pilahuín, cantón Ambato, provincia de Tungurahua

Abstract

The present research proposes: to carry out a floristic inventory of the native forest “Polylepis” located in the Pilahuín parish, Ambato, Tungurahua province, with the help of GPS, the georeference of the forest was obtained, obtaing 147 hectares, five transects of 200 m2 Where specie samples were collected from 10 cm of DBH, later identified at family, gender and species level, the species were herborized and rested at the ESPOCH herbarium (CHEP), identifying a total of 8 families, 14 gender and 18 species in addition we obtained the indexes of Simpson, Shannon, Sorensen and the index of similarity between each one of the transects. As a result, the most predominant tree species is: Gynoxis halli with 51 individuals and the most predominant shrub species are: Hypericum lancioides and Diplostephium glandulosum with 19 individuals. This is probably due to the fact that the altitudinal range where the species were collected does not differ significantly and man´s intervention in the place is scarce, in some transects, twisted growth and stems were observed possibly attributed to the force of the wind provoking the physical damage of leaves and the breaking of branches. The diversity index was low in the arboreal part and high in the high shrub part since the calculated value was close to one. The highest percentage of tree species similarity was determined between transects 1-2 and 2-3 with 85, 71% and in the shrub part the highest percentage of similarity was determined between transects 3 and 4 with 88% this can be attributed to the topography of the place since the altitude does not differ significantly, or the type of soil where the transects were established.

Key words: floristic inventory, tree and shrub species, diversity index