Potential distribution of native forest species in the El Pangui Municipality, province of Zamora Chinchipe, Ecuador

Abstract

The tropical rain forests of the El Pangui Municipality are known as home to thousands of species of flora and fauna. However, they face high rates of deforestation, inadequate management of natural resources and few alternatives for sustainable management that allow reducing the degradation of these ecosystems. Indeed, this research was developed in order to identify potential areas for the geographic distribution of Cedrelinga cateniformis, Terminalia amazonia and Clarisia racemosa, according totheir ecological requirements and thus provide information for adequate planning and definition of priority areas for future plans of reforestation in the forests of El Pangui. To know the distribution of these species, according to their ecological requirements, georeferenced information was taken from each individual. These records were mapped in 40,000 m2 plots and were related to established ranges of ecological factors (altitude, lithology, soil texture, precipitation, and mean annual temperature), which results were analyzed by the method of ecological profiles and represented in distribution maps by species. Then the Silvicultural Zoning map was drawn up at a scale of 1: 25,000, where 27,306 ha(43.2%) of the El Pangui Municipality was identified with potential for the distribution and combination of the three selected species, being the ecological factors such as altitude, temperature, lithology and soil texture, those directly related to the development and distribution of Clarisia racemosa, while Cedrelinga cateniformis would only be related to altitude and Terminalia amazonia to temperature.