One of the most exciting botanical discoveries
in Ecuador has been the discovery by one of us of a completely
unexpected local evolutionary radiation of the orchid genus
Teagueia in the Upper Pastaza Watershed (see
Teagueia species, Teagueia
Explosion, and "Explosive
local radiation of the genus Teagueia (Orchidaceae)
in the Upper Pastaza Watershed of Ecuador"
in the Lyonia online journal).
This genus was thought to have only six species worldwide.
In a tiny 20km x 20 km area of the Upper Pastaza Watershed,
Lou Jost and his students (Andy Shephard, Scott Grossman,
Pailin Wedell, and Ali Araujo) discovered 28 new species in
this genus! DNA analysis performed by Mark Whitten, Kurt Neubbig,
and Lorena Endara of the University of Florida-Gainesville,
Erik Rothacker of Ohio State University, and Alec Pridgeon
of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew have revealed that all
these species belong to a single lineage not very closely
related to the other Teagueia species; in other words,
there was a local explosion of speciation here in the Upper
Pastaza Watershed, far exceeding the mor efamous local species
radiatoins of the Galapagos islands. (The biggest plant radiation
on the Galapagos is the Scalesia radiation discovered
by Darwin, which includes 15 species scattered over all the
islands.)
One single mountain in the Upper Pastaza Watershed,
Cerro Candelaria, has 16 species of Teagueia on it,
including several species not found anywhere else. It is the
most important site for this Teagueia radiation,
and it also contains many other rare new or recently described
species, including the as-yet-undescribed smallest orchid
in the world, a new species of Platystele discovered
by one of us. Cerro Candelaria is a vast wilderness with Spectacled
Bear, Mountain Tapir, monkeys, and an unusually pristine paramo
grassland at its upper end. We are building a reserve to protect
this unique area, which borders Sangay National Park and which
would extend the protected area into the Upper Pastaza Watershed.
We are working with the World Land Trust (US
and UK) to establish this reserve, whose starting size is
2200 hectares ranging from 1800 m to 3800 m in elevation.
This purchase was made possible by the donation of an environmentally-aware
corporate sponsor, Puro Coffee, a UK fair-trade coffee company
that gives 2% of its proceeds to conservation. Another very
large corporate donation by Price Waterhouse Cooper is permitting
us to expand the reserve to include new habitats. We are very
grateful to them.
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Cerro Candelaria is
in the second tier of mountains facing the Amazon
basin in the Upper Pastaza Watershed. |
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The reserve begins here,
to the left of the large stream, at about 1800
m elevation. |
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