Quartz sands soils represent stressful habitats where plants have to cope with high acidity, moisture limitation and low nutrient availability. Facilitation is an important mechanism structuring plant communities under such stressful conditions, it has been shown to generate the spatial association of species, forming discrete vegetation patches of phylogenetically distant species. We initially looked for spatial and phylogenetic signatures left by facilitation in three Pine Forrest over quarzitic sands in western Cuba, and its relationship with the structure and composition of these peculiar ecosystems. For this six lineal parallel transepts of 100 m long and 1m wide were traced in every site, in those, a general recording of the flora is carried out. Covering was recorded using the line intercept method. A field experiment is made to measure and compare some parameters in pine seedlings under the canopy of the nurse plants and in open spaces. Soil parameters were also analyzed to support the nurse effect evidence.
Results/Conclusions
Our results show that seedlings preferentially grow under plants of different species, and that adults are significantly aggregated into vegetation patches. In these patches, adults tend to co-occur with distant relatives, ultimately forming phylogenetically diverse neighborhoods. Besides, is exposed how seedlings of Pinus have a better development under the canopies of some nurse plants than in open spaces, and also is discussed how nurse plants modified soil creating an environmental filter, only allowing the rare species adapted to this kind of ecosystems. Our findings illustrate the role that nurse effect play in conserving endangered species and provide continued evidences on how facilitation maintains plant diversity.