Conservation of Ceratozamia in Mexico 949


dispersion barriers and the historic conditions in the region) for each species (Barve et al., 2011). We used polygons re- presenting the watershed system of Mexico, and selected those polygons where at least one record was present. Because of the small number of records, we used 80%of occurrences for calibration. Models included five bootstrap- type replicas, and we selected those with the highest value for the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). We transformed the predictions obtained into a binary map (0 = absence, 1 = presence), including the total number of records in all cases corresponding to the lowest presence threshold (i.e. the minimum training presence of Maxent). We validated model predictions for species with ,20 presence records through jackknife tests (Pearson et al., 2007); for species with$20 records, analyses were conducted with PartialROC (Barve, 2008; Peterson et al., 2008; Supplementary Table 1).


Evaluation of current conservation and management strategies


The binary models were summed using the Algebra map tool in ArcMap, and then reclassified to produce a richness accumulation map. Although this method could potentially overestimate species richness in some areas, we believe it is suitable here because it did not predict areas that would not be suitable for Ceratozamia (e.g. Calabrese et al., 2014; D’Amen et al., 2015a,b). To visualize areas potentially affected by anthropogenic land-use changes, we clipped species richness maps using the most recent series of data on land use and vegetation coverage provided by the Mexican Instituto Nacional de Geografía y Estadística (INEGI, 2013). To assess the role of protected areas pro- grammes, we evaluated species richness in areas of four protection categories: State, Municipal, Common Land and Private Natural Protected Areas, following the Mexican Comisión Nacional para el Uso y Conservación de la Biodiversidad (CONABIO, 2015) and the Federal Natural Protected Areas 2014 of the Mexican Comisión Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP, 2014). We also considered Priority Terrestrial Regions (CONABIO, 2004) and main regions and subregions of the cloud forest in Mexico (CONABIO, 2008). In addition, we overlaid species richness concentrations upon a cultural map (Boege, 2008), to evaluate the geographical correspondence of Ceratozamia diversity with the distribution of ethnic groups. To evaluate ex situ conservation efforts, we consulted


with the curators or directors of the major botanical gardens in Mexico, either by visiting the collections or via e-mail. To assesses the contribution of botanical gardens to Cera- tozamia conservation, we confirmed the species identities of live specimens kept in botanical garden collections, using the taxonomic key by Martínez-Domínguez et al.


(2018). In addition, we identified two nurseries for Ceratoza- mia in the SierraMadre Oriental (Vovides et al., 2010), in the municipality ofCoacoatzintla (Veracruz State):Tachinola and Dos Cerros. Both nurseries grew C. tenuis. To examine local perceptions of the nurseries, we in-


terviewed people with varying degrees of involvement in the management and running of these conservation facili- ties (Supplementary Table 2). We identified four groups of participants: (1) representatives of local municipal insti- tutions, (2) researchers who promoted and implemented Ceratozamia conservation through nurseries, (3) members of the community who participated in nursery activities and (4) community members who did not participate (Supplementary Table 2). We also asked members of local communities about their understanding, interpretation and evaluation of conservation strategies (Bennett, 2016). During May–August 2016 we interviewed 10 local residents (nine men and one woman) from different socio-economic backgrounds. The semi-structured interviews lasted 10–30 minutes, and six were audio-recorded. Four participants did not consent to audio recordings; we took detailed notes in these cases. We asked about the participants’ knowledge of the nursery, their level of participation and perceived effects of the nursery on the community (includ- ing benefits and conflicts arising during project manage- ment). All participants gave oral consent for the use of the information, and their anonymity was preserved. We analysed the interviews qualitatively following standard practices in sociocultural anthropology and ethnobiology, using the characteristics of the content to detect any trends. During the analysis, we attempted to identify any temporal changes in the development of the nurseries (Bernard, 2011; Albuquerque et al., 2014).


Results


Taxonomy of Ceratozamia species in the Sierra Madre Oriental


The distribution of Ceratozamia species in the Sierra Madre Oriental is confined to a narrow eco-climatic zone. In herb- aria and during our fieldwork, we found a total of 150 unique records, with geographical coordinates, of the 14 species that occur in this Mexican province. Six species are micro- endemic, of which five are located in the south of the region: C. brevifrons, C. morettii and C. tenuis occur in the Sierra Norte de Puebla-Chiconquiaco region, and C. mexicana is present in the south in a part of the Antigua Basin and, to a lesser extent, in the Huatusco-Coscomatepec area (Fig. 1). Ceratozamia decumbens is distributed in the Huautla- Zongolica region and in a small part of the Orizaba region (Fig. 2), and C. zaragozae is endemic to the Sierra de Álvarez (San Luis Potosí).


Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 947–956 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000204


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