Séminaire sur la diversité des Aracées en Colombie

Dans le cadre de l’accueil du Professeur invité, Alejandro Zuluaga Trochez (Université de Cali, Colombie), un séminaire (en anglais) se tiendra le lundi 27 juin à 11h à Vignola sur la diversité des Aracées en Colombie.

Diversity of the Arum family in Colombia Tropical America, especially the north of South America, hosts the greatest diversity of the Arum family in the world. There are around 2000 described species for this region and many more new species to be described. Colombia, thanks to its complex geography and variety of ecosystems is the richest country in the world with ca 1000 species. The Amazon region of Colombia is more diverse in genera with 22, but the Choco region is more diverse in species number, with ca. 500. The diversity of the arum family In Colombia is not only in number of species and abundance but also in ecological aspects such as life forms and pollination. For example, epiphytic aroids comprise 30% of the diversity in Colombia and are a key component of lowland forests. Finally, the diversity of ecological interactions is large but understudied, and we have found up to 70 different insects interacting with a single aroid species. However, for several genera and most species pollinators and other insect-plant interactions are unknown.