[Characteristics of canopy plant substratum in a low land humid tropical forest (Upper Orinoco, Venezuela)].

Abstract

By international agreement (Austria-Venezuela) a tower crane was installed near Surumoni river, Upper Orinoco, for canopy research in a tropical rain forest. From the 1.5 ha crane-accessible area of the forest, an experimental plot was selected for assessment of the canopy plants' aerial substrates and to determine their relationship with spatial distribution, presence or absence of vascular plants, and some of the strategies used in their ecological space. In the middle and lower canopy strata myrmecophytic associations appear, where the conformation of the aerial substrates determines the establishment and maintenance of these associations. The high content of nutrients of these aerial substrata represents a reservoir for the forest, where the mirmecophytic activity is determining. A higher fertility of aerial substrates of the ants gardens can be related to a higher number of vascular epiphytes present in these gardens.