Herbarium curator and Researcher , taxonomy and plants interactions Ecovida Pinar del Río, Pinar del Rio, Cuba
Background/Question/Methods
Fresh water wetlands biodiversity are among the most sensitive to climate change, in our country, the most of them was located on particular types quartz sands ecosystems, which are represented by a wide range of fresh water wetlands with several level flooding, they are spread in the south and south-western flood plains of Pinar del Río. Due to few works were found about these issues in the last century related to it; an extensive field work was carried out, together with a monthly monitoring system in the last 10 years, gathering a lot of data as well as: pictures, animal and herbarium samples, plant phenology, seasonal variations, factors cause species endangerment, among others. Data and samples were taken from more than 1000 diferent lagoons, swamps, marshes and flood plains.
Results/Conclusions
In accordance with general data, a preliminary updated inventory of these species was compiled, which provides species information about family, genera, distribution, and the threat grade. A remarkable decrease the species number is evidenced, in regard to the previous scarce works related to this area; oligotrophic fresh water wetlands are transitioning towards eutrophic conditions due to deposit processes and deforestation, which are taken place by the human activity and the climatic change; the limitless use of their water reserves for irrigating groves, the cattle raising and intensive fishing, besides its sand with 99% pure crystal quartz, are used for the mining. The combination of these factors, has a negative influence over all biodiversity components, as its flora which stores more than 300 species, also were found 45 aquatic bird species, 15 macro invertebrates, 14 reptiles, 13 fishes and 11 amphibious; from the total more than 80% are evaluated inside the most sensitive threat categories, unfortunately already some of them have been declared as extinct.
