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A tool set for description and mapping vegetation on protected natural areas: an example from the Canary Islands

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Abstract

The Canary Islands belong to Mediterranean basin hotspot, especially because their rich endemic flora. Nearly 40% of the total archipelago area is protected through protected natural area network. However, some plant communities show high degree of disturbance or they develop in unprotected zones. So, multivariate analysis combined with vegetation mapping can be useful for identify, describe and protect the main plant communities. These tools have been applied in Caldera de Taburiente national park (La Palma. Canary Islands). An actual vegetation map of this park is showed and its major natural vegetation units are described. These tools could be applied to other protected and unprotected areas, especially for planning, management and conservation purposes.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Ángel Palomares-Martínez, Aurelio Acevedo-Rodríguez, Antonio Rodríguez-Lerín, Mercedes Díaz, Juan Luis Mora, Francisco Villaespesa and the maintenance team of Caldera de Taburiente national park for their help in field exploration. The authors also wish to thank Jairo Patiño and J.Mª González-Mancebo for their advice on statistical analysis and Beatriz Rumeu for providing information about Canary cedar.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología Vegetal (Botánica), Universidad de La Laguna, C/Astrofísico Francisco Sánchez s/n, Tenerife, Islas Canarias, 38071, La Laguna, Spain

    Víctor Garzón-Machado, Marcelino-José del Arco Aguilar & Pedro-Luis Pérez-de-Paz

Authors
  1. Víctor Garzón-Machado
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  2. Marcelino-José del Arco Aguilar
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  3. Pedro-Luis Pérez-de-Paz
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Correspondence to Víctor Garzón-Machado.

Additional information

Nomenclature: Taxonomical nomenclature according to Acebes et al. (2010); Syntaxonomical nomenclature according to Rivas-Martínez et al. (2001), (2002), and Del Arco et al. (2006)

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 7 for Appendix.

Table 7 Appendix. Synthetic table of the natural vegetation units. Presence classes according to Braun-Blanquet (1979), and Alcaraz (1999)
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Garzón-Machado, V., del Arco Aguilar, MJ. & Pérez-de-Paz, PL. A tool set for description and mapping vegetation on protected natural areas: an example from the Canary Islands. Biodivers Conserv 20, 3605–3625 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-011-0153-6

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