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Habitat filtering of six coexisting Heliconia species in a lowland tropical rain forest in Amazonian Ecuador

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2019

Elizabeth L. Tokarz ,
Pablo Álvia ,
Renato Valencia  and
Simon A. Queenborough
Elizabeth L. Tokarz
Affiliation:
Yale College, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
Pablo Álvia
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Plant Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
Renato Valencia
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Plant Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
Simon A. Queenborough*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Plant Ecology, School of Biological Sciences, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
*
*Email: simon.queenborough@yale.edu
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Abstract

Herbaceous plants are often under-studied in tropical forests, despite their high density and diversity, and little is known about the factors that influence their distribution at microscales. In a 25-ha plot in lowland Amazonian rain forest in Yasuní National Park, Ecuador, we censused six species of Heliconia (Heliconiaceae) in a stratified random manner across three topographic habitat types. We observed distribution patterns consistent with habitat filtering. Overall, more individuals occurred in the valley (N = 979) and slope (N = 847) compared with the ridge (N = 571) habitat. At the species level, Heliconia stricta (N = 1135), H. spathocircinata (N = 309) and H. ortotricha (N = 36) all had higher abundance in the valley and slope than ridge. Further, H. vellerigera (N = 20) was completely absent from the ridge. Conversely, H. velutina (N = 903) was most common in the drier ridge habitat. The two most common species (H. stricta and H. velutina) had a reciprocal or negative co-occurrence pattern and occurred preferentially in valley versus ridge habitats. These results suggest that taxa within this family have different adaptations to the wetter valley versus the drier ridge and that habitat partitioning contributes to coexistence.

Keywords

CoexistenceherbaceousspeciestropicalYasuní
Type
Short Communication
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 91 - 94
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

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