Archive for Bryology
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123
The Chocó region in Colombia is one of the wettest rainforests regions in the world. Isolated for about 3 million years, it is known for its high rate of endemism in flowering plants, ferns, birds and butterflies. Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) of this region, however, were very unsufficiently known. For this reason, a first survey of the bryoflora of the Chocó region was made in 1992 along a transect from sea level to 1800 m elevation. Apparently because of the high precipitation with up to 12 m annual rainfall, terrestrial species were found growing on bark or corticolous species on leaves. The cover of epiphytic bryophytes is higher than elsewhere, especially in the lowland forest which shows usually a low bryophyte cover. The percentage of mosses compared with that of liverworts is much lower than elsewhere. Mosses form only about 10% of the bryophyte cover in contrast to 40-50% in the according elevation in other rain forest regions.
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District Rajouri harbours a rich floral and faunal diversity besides varying climatic zones namely sub-tropical, temperate and alpine. The region exhibit significant altitudinal variations ranging from 490 m. to 4700 m. The present study was conducted to report bryophytic elements of the study area as there is no previous work done on this aspect from the study area, except some stray references. A total of 44 bryophyte species belonging to 4 orders, 16 families and 21 genera were reported from the study area. A checklist of the reported plant species with family, distributional range and habitat is presented in the paper. Besides contributing to the regional and national biodiversity check list database, the present study has opened up a new window for the future studies on the various aspects of the reported taxa including extensive exploration for the updation of the present list and to study the conservational aspects of the disappearing bryoflora of the region.
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