Determinación del potencial aviturístico del cantón Cumandá, provincia de Chimborazo

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the avitourism potential of the Cumandá canton, at Chimborazo province. It was developed in dry and rainy seasons, at nine places of work previously selected through random sampling corresponding to an area of 26 ha., focusing on the better represented ecosystems within the canton. Twenty-four trips to the field and a sampling effort of 72 hours/man for each site were performed. All the sampled sites were covered seeking and identifying the species visually and audibly using the available field guides for Ecuador and northern South America and adding own photographic records for nearly all the listed species (93%). A total of two hundred sixty-two species were identified, they were divided into sixteen bird orders and forty-two families, twenty-one of them correspond to non-passerine birds, in implementing alfa and beta biodiversity indices; the conservation status of species and the ecosystems, and the Avitourism Potential Index (IPA), it was determined that the canton has an excellent ornithological biodiversity with a few of threatened species (8), the presences of trophic guilds, 36 endemic shared species and 17 species with an adequate (IPA), which denotes as yet unexplored avitourism potential. Therefore, a market research to determine the acceptance of the avitourism product in the canton was undertaken, achieving an acceptance of 94% of the surveyed segment. Keywords: AVITOURISM POTENTIAL-PHOTOGRAPHIC RECORDS-ENDEMIC BIRD SPECIES-ECOSYSTEMS