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Dispersal Ecology of Neotropical Piper Shrubs and Treelets

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Piper: A Model Genus for Studies of Phytochemistry, Ecology, and Evolution

Abstract

Along with the Melastomataceae, Rubiaceae, and Solanaceae, shrubs and treelets of the Piperaceae (primarily Piper) are numerically dominant members of the understories of many Neotropical forests. This dominance occurs both in number of species and number of individuals. Gentry and Emmons (1987) reported that Piper species richness ranged from 0.3 to 6.5 species per 500-m transect along a rainfall/soil fertility gradient in Central and South America compared with ranges of 0.7–5.8 and 1.0–8.4 in the Melastomataceae and Rubiaceae, respectively. Data summarized in Gentry (1990) indicate that Piper species richness in certain well-studied moist or wet tropical forests ranges from 18 (Barro Colorado Island, Panama) to 60 or more species (La Selva, Costa Rica). Tropical dry forests have much lower diversity (e.g., five species at Parque Nacional Santa Rosa, Costa Rica; Fleming 1985). Forests around Manaus, Brazil, also contain few Piper species (Prance 1990). Overall, the pantropical genus Piper has been especially successful evolutionarily in the lowland Neotropics, which contains over twice as many species as the Asian tropics (700 vs. 300 species; Jaramillo and Manos 2001).

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Miami, Florida, USA

    Theodore H. Fleming

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  1. Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

    Lee A. Dyer

  2. Mesa State College, Grand Junction, Colorado, USA

    Aparna D. N. Palmer

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Fleming, T.H. (2004). Dispersal Ecology of Neotropical Piper Shrubs and Treelets. In: Dyer, L.A., Palmer, A.D.N. (eds) Piper: A Model Genus for Studies of Phytochemistry, Ecology, and Evolution. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30599-8_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30599-8_4

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