Abstract
ABSTRACT Most studies concerning climbing plants have focused on lianas, forest ecosystems, and tropical regions. Thus, the majority of existing information is not relevant to all climbing plants (lianas and vines) or all ecoregions of the world (forested and non-forested). We provide an update on floristic and distributional data available for climbing plants in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, which is located within subtropical and temperate zones and includes a variety of forest and non-forest vegetation types. A total of 448 climbing plant species were confirmed and documented by voucher specimens, revealing a diversity similar to that registered for trees in the state (533). The significant contribution of climbing species to the regional flora, the differences in floristic composition and species richness among the state’s eight vegetation types, and the high number of endangered species found in this extratropical region reveal the requirement to expand studies of climbing plants to include environments beyond tropical forests. Furthermore, the importance of herbaceous climbing species in subtropical and temperate floras demonstrates that they should be included in ecological studies of climbing plants, and that future analyses could detect unique or divergent patterns between herbaceous and woody climbers.
Highlights
More than 25 years ago, when the book “The Biology of Vines” (Putz & Mooney 1991) was published, climbing plants were likely, according to Gentry (1991), “the most undercollected of any major habit group of plants”
When area is taken into account, Dense Ombrophilous Forest (DOF) stands out as having the highest species-area relationship (0.07081 species/km2), followed by Temperate Savanna (TMS) (0.02188 species/km2)
In southern South America, lianas are important components of forest vegetation types, such as those located in biogeographic and climatic transition regions in southern Brazil (Durigon & Waechter 2011) and temperate forests in Chile (Gianoli et al 2010; Marticorena et al 2010), whereas vines appear to have successfully diversified and occupied more opened vegetation types, assuming a greater importance in multiple non-forest physiognomies (Durigon et al 2014a). This update to the list of climbing species from Rio Grande do Sul, in addition to revealing a greater number of species than that found in a previous study (Durigon et al 2014b), contributes to a re-evaluation of the importance that is given to climbers in extratropical regions
Summary
More than 25 years ago, when the book “The Biology of Vines” (Putz & Mooney 1991) was published, climbing plants were likely, according to Gentry (1991), “the most undercollected of any major habit group of plants”. The existing data concerning climbing plant diversity, and most the distribution and floristic patterns found, cannot be applied to all ecoregions of the world or to climbers as a whole (woody and herbaceous climbers; i.e. lianas and vines). Despite sharing many species with the tropics, climbing flora of extratropical regions can exhibit a distinctive taxonomic and ecological diversity of climbing plants (Durigon et al 2014a; Gallagher 2015). In extratropical South America, the floristic pattern contrasts with those described for tropical regions, with differences in the most speciose families and species composition (Durigon et al 2014a). In temperate areas of South America, the remarkable success of vines can be attributed to their high frequency in the non-forest ecosystems that cover a large part of the area (Durigon et al 2014a)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
