Rediscovery of the Neotropical orchid Porroglossum parsonsii and recommendations for its conservation E DICSON PARRA -SANCHEZ* 1 ,J UAN S EBASTIÁN MORE N O 2 , 3
S EBASTIÁN VIEI R A-URIBE 3 , 4 , 5 ,LUIS BAQUERO 6 and DAV I D P. EDWARDS 7
Abstract Understanding the distribution and habitat re- quirements of species is crucial for designing conservation actions, yet this information is not available for many plant species. We report the first confirmed wild popula- tions of Porroglossum parsonsii, which, because of its horticultural value, is commercialized in national and inter- national markets, from where it was first described to science. Our large-scale survey of 341 10 × 30 m plots span- ning Andean forests, paramo habitats and pasturelands in Colombia suggests that P. parsonsii has a restricted geo- graphical distribution in Andean forests with high forest cover (71.4–86.2%), where it occurs in low numbers (5–17 individuals per plot). Because of its market value (USD 18–20 per plant) there is a risk the species could be collected illegally, and therefore the habitat of the species in the Santuario de Fauna y Flora de Iguaque requires appropriate conservation.
Keywords Andean biodiversity, Colombia, endemism, habitat loss, horticultural value, Orchidaceae, Porroglossum parsonsii, threatened species
O
rchidaceae is one of the most species-rich families (Plants of the World Online, 2023), yet an estimated
4,342 orchid species are threatened with extinction (Zizka et al., 2021). This estimate only includes species for which the taxonomy is clear and for which basic knowledge re- garding geographical location, habitat requirements and/ or population size exists (Luer, 1996; Kelloff & Kass, 2018; Parra et al., 2023). Formany orchid species such knowledge is lacking, and therefore there is inadequate information for appropriate conservation actions.
*Corresponding author,
edicsonparras@gmail.com The online version of this article has been updated since original publication. A
notice detailing the change has also been published 1Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biosciences, University of
Sheffield, Sheffield, UK 2Grupo de Investigación Schultes, Fundación Ecotonos, Cali, Colombia 3Departamento de Biología, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia 4Sociedad Colombiana de Orquideología, Medellín, Colombia 5Grupo de Investigación en Biodiversidad Tropical, Jardín Botánico de
Medellín, Medellín, Colombia 6Grupo de Investigación en Medio Ambiente y Salud BIOMAS, Carrera de Ingeniería Agroindustrial y Alimentos, Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias
Agropecuarias, Universidad de Las Américas, Quito, Ecuador 7Department of Plant Sciences and Conservation Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Received 12 September 2023. Revision requested 15 November 2023. Accepted 17 January 2024. First published online 11 March 2024.
Porroglossum parsonsii Luer is one such species for
which there is no geographical or ecological information. It is one of the 51 known species in the genus (Karremans et al., 2023), which has its greatest diversity in Ecuador (Baquero et al., 2020) and Colombia (Ortiz-Valdivieso & Uribe-Velez, 2007). Despite being traded on the global market, the only recognized collection of P. parsonsii is the holotype in herbarium MO, which was exported from Colombia without any traceable documentation, as sug- gested in the protologue ‘without collection data, obtained from a Colombian collector, in 2004, flowered in cultiva- tion .. ., in California’ (C. Luer 20985, MO). During a large-scale orchid survey (January 2019–
December 2021) we found natural populations of P. parsonsii for the first time (voucher
E.Parra-Sanchez 1240, herbarium VALLE, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Palmira; Plate 1). We surveyed 341 randomly located 10 × 30 m plots in Andean forests, paramo habitats and pasturelands in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes. Our survey covered c. 270 km from north to south over 1,130–3,700 m elevation (Fig. 1; for additional details see Parra-Sanchez et al., 2023). In each plot we recorded adult orchid indivi- duals in the understorey (up to 2 m aboveground). Surveys, by EP-S, required 2–5 h per plot. Around each plot we quantified forest cover in 12 buffer zones to esti- mate the potential available habitat for species (100, 200, 300, 500, 800, 1,000, 1,200, 1,500, 1,800, 2,000, 2,200 and 2,400 m; Fahrig, 2013; Hansen et al., 2013). We used landscapemetrics (Hesselbarth et al., 2019)in R 4.1.3 (R Core Team, 2022) to quantify the forest cover in each buf- fer based on the 30 m resolution global change forest map from 2018 (Hansen et al., 2013). We found P. parsonsii in two of the 341 plots, separated
by 17.6 km, with forest cover of 77.2–82.0% in the protected area Santuario de Fauna y Flora de Iguaque at 3,140 m, and 71.4–86.2% cover in Arcabuco at 2,580 m in a forest patch c. 30 m from a dirt road and near pasturelands (Fig. 1). The species grows as an epiphytic plant on mature trees (tree density 0.20–0.29 trees/m2), with low local population sizes (5–17 adult individuals per plot). We have not extrapo- lated this local density to a larger area as P. parsonsii prob- ably grows in non-uniform, small and widely spaced clusters, as suggested by our surveys and by surveys else- where of other orchid species in related genera (Peláez et al., 2009; Baquero&Meyer, 2014; Kindlmann et al., 2014). Our extensive survey suggests P. parsonsii has a limited geographical range, a non-uniform occurrence within the
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2024, 58(5), 603–606 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000139
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