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Forests Diversity in the Mexican Neotropics: A Paleoecological View

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Neotropical Diversification: Patterns and Processes

Part of the book series: Fascinating Life Sciences ((FLS))

Abstract

The forests of Mexico have conclusive environmental characteristics mainly shaped by geology and climate change. The western region is geologically linked to volcanic forcing, which in turn was responsible for mountain uplift while the east was formed by tectonic movement in a steady and gradual process allowing the development of rare taxa. These natural processes have produced dissimilarities in forest composition along the different regions of the Mexican territory. For the Holocene, palaeoclimatic and palaeoecological records have revealed that climate change is an essential factor involved in this diversification. Therefore, in order to discern differences in taxon diversity in tropical and temperate ecosystems during the Holocene, 15 sites with palaeoecological data retrieved from several sources (lakes, lagoons, ponds, a moraine depression and forest hollows) were studied. They comprised highland and lowland vegetation from 0 to 3860 m asl representing local and regional signals in mangrove forest, tropical evergreen forest, tropical subdeciduous forest, pine forest, pine-oak forest and cloud forests in different regions of Mexico. We used seven diversity metrics along with abundance estimation (Rarefaction, Pielou evenness, Shannon diversity, Hill numbers: N0, N1 and N2 and Rate of Change). Our results indicated that forests with a tropical component were more diverse than forests with Holarctic affinities. Nonetheless, it was not clear if local signals were more diverse than regional signals or that lowland signals were more diverse than highland signals.

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Acknowledgements

Research undertaken in forest hollows was supported by Conacyt (Mexican National Council for Science and Technology, project 106435) and CoecytJal (State Council for Science and Technology Jalisco, project 5-2010-875).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología y Recursos Naturales, Centro Universitario de la Costa Sur, Universidad de Guadalajara, Autlán de Navarro, Jalisco, Mexico

    Blanca L. Figueroa-Rangel, Miguel Olvera-Vargas & Ana P. Del Castillo-Batista

  2. Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México DF, Mexico

    Socorro Lozano-García & Susana Sosa-Najera

  3. Departamento Conservación de la Biodiversidad, El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico

    Gerald Islebe & Nuria Torrescano

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  1. Blanca L. Figueroa-Rangel
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  2. Miguel Olvera-Vargas
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  3. Socorro Lozano-García
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  4. Gerald Islebe
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  7. Ana P. Del Castillo-Batista
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Correspondence to Blanca L. Figueroa-Rangel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Paleoecology, Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

    Valentí Rull

  2. Department of Biology, City College of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Ana Carolina Carnaval

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Figueroa-Rangel, B.L. et al. (2020). Forests Diversity in the Mexican Neotropics: A Paleoecological View. In: Rull, V., Carnaval, A. (eds) Neotropical Diversification: Patterns and Processes. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31167-4_17

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