P R E S E T A T I O N S
Rare palms around Iquitos, Peru
Kristiansen, Thea, Svenning J.-C., Bjorholm, S., Salo, J., Grández, C., and Balslev, Henrik
Diversity hotspots often attain their high species richness through skewed abundance distributions with many rare species. Looking nto the reasons for rarity thus contributes to explain large-scale diversity patterns. Here we investigate the reasons for rarity in the alm community around Iquitos, Peru. In 59 transects (5Ã500m, with each palm individual identified to species level as either eedling, juvenile, sub-adult or adult) we found 70 species in total. Preliminary results point to habitat specialists accounting for a hird of the rare species in the Iquitos palm community, with a less marked coincidence of rarity and small total range size.
Distance decay of similarity in palm (Arecaceae) species richness and composition across the Americas
Stine Bjorholm, Jens-Christian Svenning & Henrik Balslev*
Species richness and species composition constitute two fundamental aspects of biological community structure. Large-scale ariability in species richness is often thought to depend on environmental conditions, in particular climate, whereas species omposition is generally thought to be more geographically constrained. Here, we investigate three hypotheses concerning the istance decay in community similarity (DD; for species richness, DDr; for composition, DDc) using data on palm species distributions cross North and South America: (1) DDr < DDc. (2) Similarity in species richness depend more on environmental than on eographical distance, while the converse is true for species composition. (3) Considering large subregions, DD is strongest in
environmentally complex (e.g., mountainous areas) or geographically fragmented areas (e.g., archipelagos).
Our results provided clear support for hypotheses 1-2: At the bi-continental scale we found a strong DDc, while similarity in species ichness did not decline monotonically with geographic distance. Furthermore, we found similarity in species richness to be more ependent on environmental than on geographical distance, while the converse was true for species composition. Regarding ypothesis 3, we found large differences among subregions in distance decay rates (DDr & DDc) reflecting a great and important nfluence of local environmental complexity and spatial structure.
Ongoing work on the Iquitos palm communities
Henrik Balslev, Thea Kristensen & Jens Christian Svenning
The one degree grid square that includes Iquitos in Amazonian Peru has more palm species than any other grid square in the mazon basin, and we have identified close to 90 palm taxa in the area. To understand the coexistence of so many species of palms e are establishing a large series of 5 x 500 m transects in which we identify and count all palm individuals from seedlings to adults. o far we have made close to 60 transects. This presentation will describe the work and its methods and give some preliminary escriptive statistics concerning the Iquitos palm communities
Rreproductive plasticity in an Amazonian palm tree
Sébastien Barot
The babassu, Attalea speciosa, is a forest monoecious palm tree which tends to invade pastures resulting from deforestation in mazon. This feature was used to compare in three environments, i.e. a forest, a partially invaded pasture, a pure stand of babassu babassual), the effect of size on the onset of reproduction and sex-allocation. Both total height and number of leaves were used as easures of size. It was shown that reproduction starts at smaller sizes in the pasture and the babassual than in the forest, height being a better predictor of reproduction than number of leaves in the forest. Moreover, male reproduction starts at smaller heights han female reproduction in the pasture and the babassual but not in the forest. Hence reproduction is highly plastic which is ermitted by the fact than male and female flowers grow on different inflorescences. Starting reproduction at smaller heights in the pasture than in the forest where access to light is much more difficult due to the shading by the canopy of trees is likely to be adaptive. Three explanations are proposed for the sex-allocation pattern: female reproduction is more costly than male reproduction, fitness-gain curve increase more quickly with size for female than for male, plasticity in sex-allocation is not optimal.
Population structure and reproductive strategy of two rattan species of Ivory Coast
Kouassi, K.I., Barot, S., Djè, Y. and Zoro Bi, I.A.
Eremospatha macrocarpa and Laccosperma secundiflorum are African rattan species whose natural populations are exploited. All genets were censused on three plots. E. macrocarpa has more ramets and fewer genets per hectare than L. secundiflorum. The stage distribution of genets is bimodal for E. macrocarpa and unimodal for L. secundiflorum. Theses two population structures can be explained at the same time by a higher ramet survival and by a higher rate of ramet production, starting at earlier stages, for E. macrocarpa (pleonanthic flowering) than for L. secundiflorum (hapaxanthic flowering). In this context, in the continuum r/K, E.
macrocarpa seems closer to the r pole than L. secundiflorum.
Employment of Desmoncus polyacanthos seen in the light of its stem structure.
Lone K. Hübschmann, Lars Peter Kvist, Cesar Grandez and Henrik Balslev.
The South American liana palm Desmoncus polyacanthos is commonly used for weaving baskets and seats in Iquitos, Peru. The stems are almost always used as split stems, with pith removed and wasted. This suggests that the mainstay of the strength of the stem is located in the outermost part of the central cylinder and cortex. Few fibers are associated with the vascular bundles; instead a much reinforced layer occupies the outermost cell layers of the central cylinder. This makes the stem structure of Desmoncus polyacanthos and its feasible uses quite different from its morphological look-alikes, the rattans.
Ethnobotanical study of palm uses in the village of Bello Horizonte, Peru
Anne Louise Møller, Henrik Balslev and Cécar Grandes
Palms are very important for rural life in the Amazonian rain forest. In Bello Horizonte, Peru, fortythree people knew 39 species of palms. We asked which parts of the palms they used, and what they were used for. Everyone in the village knew of uses of palms, and 10 palm species were known by all informants. Our analysis is still under way, but at this point we know that there is no significant difference between the recorded knowledge among men and women, and that the origin of the informant and his or her level of education did not affect the knowledge.
Comparative floral structure and systematics in the palm genus Rhapis (Arecaceae, Coryphoideae)
Anne Giddey, Fred W. Stauffer, Rodolphe E. Spichiger
Our research represents a preliminary comparative approach of the floral structure for the species in the genus Rhapis (Arecaceae, Coryphoideae, Rhapidinae). Flowers are mainly unisexual, with three sepals, three petals, 6 stamens or staminodes and three carpels or carpellodes. Some evidences of postgenital fusion were observed at the apical level of the gynoecium; however, a postgenital fusion of the carpels at their base is also possible. Ovules are basally attached and crassinucellate; they appear to be briefly anatropous. A thorough comparative approach of the male flowers, based on the morphology of the filaments, suggests a division of the species into two groups. Rhapis excelsa and R. subtilis exhibit thick and keeled filaments, whereas R. gracilis, R. humilis, R. laosensis, R. micrantha and R. multifida have slender, non-keeled filaments. Some features never before observed in Rhapis, like the fusion of the carpels, indicate a possible intermediate position of the genus among the Coryphoideae.
Building a total evidence matrix for Areceae and other tribes
Jean-Christophe Pintaud
Resolving intergeneric relationships among genera of Areceae remains the most challenging aspect of current phylogenetic research in the palm family. Despite the accumulation of sequence data from the chloroplast and nuclear genomes, the largest tribe of palms still show very poor resolution and many conflicts among genes. This situation may result from low rate of molecular evolution in this group combined with a radiation in Pacific islands. In these conditions, it is possible that increasing the amount of sequence data will only slowly improve the phylogenetic resolution and generate more conflicts. On the other hand, there is a wealth of morphological and anatomical data available for this tribe. Many partial datasets exist which have explored in detail the phylogenetic usefulness and coding of characters (general morphology, root, leaf, floral, fruit anatomy, pollen morphology, ultrastructure and ontogeny). These data sets could easily be completed for a common set of taxa. I have compiled in a matrix the data available in a set of 110 Areceae and other Arecoideae for 80 morphological and anatomical characters and 17 gene regions. I would like to distribute this preliminary work to those interested in checking and completing the taxa and characters samplings and encourage any new work undertaken in Areceae and related tribes to contribute to filling this matrix. Hopefully the combination of all this information could improve the resolution of Areceae phylogeny.
Presentation of the book The Palms of Odoardo Beccari
Chiara Nepi & Piero Cuccuini
The communication deals with the presentation of the catalogue of the collection of Palms (exsiccata, photos, drawings) held in the herbaria of Florence (Italy): Herbarium Palmarum and Erbario della Malesia left by the great botanist O. Beccari (1843-1920). The catalogue is the core of the book titled The Palms of Odoardo Beccari, printed in 2006. It contains also biographical notes on the numerous collectors of the specimens with reference to the genera collected, the geographical lists of taxa, the lists of the types, with the reproduction of the pertaining labels.
Biodiversity of date palms in Sudan
Sakina Elshibli
Date palm is the most important fruit tree in northern Sudan, where it has been cultivated for more than 3000 years, with current estimation of about 400 varieties and strains of dates existing in the country. Besides its importance as a fruit tree, date palm plays an important role in enhancing microclimate for vegetable and fodder production. In spite of the high nutritive, economic and social values of date palm culture in Sudan, little attention has been paid on its biodiversity which has not been previously studied.
Genetic diversity and speciation processes in Astrocaryum section Ayri
Bertha Ludeña, Germania Karolys and Jean-Christophe Pintaud
Astrocaryum is a Neotropical genus (Cocoseae, Bactridinae) of about 35 species. Section Ayri undergoes a radiation in Amazonia. There are currently 20 species identified in this section, two of them yet undescribed. Many species show a pattern of local endemism along the eastern Andes, in western and central Amazonia and the Guayanas. Closely related species display parapatric or sympatric distributions, in the later case, with or without ecological differentiation at the scale of habitat or micro-habitat. Within this group, we investigated more specifically species which have a contiguous distribution along a geographical barrier (river or arch), in western Amazonia. The questions we wanted to address were: do contiguous distributions result from parapatric speciation or to maximum extension of allopatric species meeting along a barrier? Is there gene flow between species in contact zones? Are genetic and geographic distances correlated in a group of radiating species? We investigated the genetic diversity and differentiation in 5 contiguous species (total 96 individuals) with 6 nuclear and 2 chloroplastic SSR markers and generated an interpopulationnal genetic distance tree and a biogeographic scenario for these species.
Ceroxylon echinulatum, a cline species from both sides of the Ecuadorian Andes
Philipp Trénel, Mats H. Gustafsson, and Finn Borchsenius
Ceroxylon echinulatum (Ceroxyleae, Palmae) is a tall canopy palm tree endemic to the humid montane forests of the western and eastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes and the eastern slopes of northeastern Peru. Recent field work has demonstrated that fruit morphology changes gradually from an echinulate exocarp in NE populations to a tuberculate exocarp in NW populations, following an U-shaped cline going NE-SE-SW-NW. We tested the hypothesis of C. echinulatum being a cline species that crosses the Andes in southern Ecuador using seven nuclear microsatellite markers. We sampled 100+ individuals from 9 geographically defined
populations from both sides of the Andes. A Mantel test demonstrated a strong and highly significant correlation between genetic distances and U-cline geographic distances. Bayesian clustering of individuals identified 4 clusters: a NE, SE, SW, and NW cluster, corresponding to four previously proposed phytogeographic regions of the Andean flora of Ecuador. Thus, our study demonstrates that C. echinulatum is a cline species that successfully has crossed the Andes barrier in southern Ecuador. Furthermore, the N-S
going Andes mountain chain and the dry valleys of the W-E going Giron-Paute deflection act as filters or barriers to gene flow, resulting in considerable population differentiation in C. echinulatum.
Palmweb, the EDIT palm portal - what's in it for you?
Soraya Villalba and Bill Baker
The European Institute of Taxonomy, EDIT, is an EU Framework 6-funded initiative with the objective of promoting integration among European taxonomists. Workpackage 6 of EDIT aims to reduce the fragmentation of taxonomic resources and expertise by taking advantage of web-based technology. The palm family is one of the three exemplar groups set out to explore the means to achieve these aims. Much of the efforts in the palm exemplar group are directed at designing the web portal, called Palmweb, as a tool to facilitate collaborative research among taxonomist and the dissemination of their work. In the EUNOPS meeting we will give a demonstration of the prototype portal and present the main issues involved in the development of an authoritative and dynamic taxonomic web resource, in particular regarding content structure and content maintenance via contributions from the palm specialists. We would like to discuss the real needs of the palm scientists in order to improve the portal and its tools. The participation of the taxonomic community is essential to create an efficient web resource for taxonomic research.