| Abstract Detail
Ecological Section Price, Relf [1], Keller, Harold W. [2]. Cryptogam Survey of the Valles Caldera National Preserve: An Interim Report. The Valles Caldera National Preserve is a recently acquired 36,000 ha property located in the Jemez Mountains of North Central New Mexico. The area includes an extinct volcano caldera approximately 21 km wide with terrain ranging in elevation from 2,400-3,400 m. Redondo Peak is the tallest mountain at 3,430 m. The regional climate is semi-arid continental. The vegetation types include subalpine forest, mixed conifer forests, mixed montane shrubland, montane grasslands, wet meadows, fens and riparian shrubland. The headwaters of the East Fork of the Jemez River and the Rio San Antonio originate within the Preserve. There are several springs, seeps, gas vents, and geothermal active areas in the Preserve. Rock outcrops and felsenmeer rock fields (talus slopes) are also present. These multiple habitats provide a botanically rich and diverse area with numerous representatives of spore producing fungi (to include plant parasites), slime molds, algae, lichens, bryophytes, and ferns. As specimens are collected and identified, they are deposited in the preserve’s herbarium for future reference. Notable collections made thus far include: a state record for the moss Warnstorfia fluitans; the rare myxomycete Lamproderma cristatum (only the second collection in North America); the unusual slime mold, Kelleromyxa fimicola on elk dung; roughly one out of every four lichens collected are new state records; and the basidiomycete, Boletus barrowsii, is present on the Preserve. The scope of the project has been expanded over the past five years to include species distribution maps, lichen growth rate studies, Odonata collections and identification, and an integrated study of a unique watershed that is populated with numerous gas vents containing hydrogen sulfide.
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1 - Valles Caldera National Preserve, P.O. Box 359, Jemez Springs, NM, 87025, USA
2 - Botanical Research Institute of Texas, 509 Pecan Street, Fort Worth, Texas, 76102, USA
Keywords:
cryptogam
Valles Caldera
Bryophyte
myxomycete
lichen.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for BSA Sections
Session: 14
Location: Wasatch B/Cliff Lodge - Level C
Date: Monday, July 27th, 2009
Time: 10:15 AM
Number: 14001
Abstract ID:301 |
