Abstract
habitats in the Amazon basin had been overlooked as a partial explanation of the extremely high plant species diversity there. This approach requires evidence of edaphic specialization as a species characteristic, in combination with the presence of soil or topographic variability at a particular site. Gentry (1986, 1988) provided further indications that this is a potent explanation of species diversity patterns among numerous tree and liana species in the Amazon. Edaphic and topographical specialization has recently been shown for various vascular plant species by researchers in lowland forest in Costa Rica (Lieberman et al., 1 985), Panama (Hubbell & Foster, 1983), French Guiana (Lescure & Boulet, 1985), the Brazilian Amazon (Campbell et al., 1986), and the Ecuadorian Amazon (Balslev et al., 1987). Here we report observations made on pteridophytes in a study area with obvious edaphic differences in the western Amazon basin. We tested the hypothesis that the presence of these differences would result in increased species richness of the pteridophytes.
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