{"id":1443,"date":"2014-04-24T16:38:20","date_gmt":"2014-04-24T20:38:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nybg.org\/science-talk\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2014-04-24T16:39:14","modified_gmt":"2014-04-24T20:39:14","slug":"exploring-the-mountains-of-eastern-cuba-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/exploring-the-mountains-of-eastern-cuba-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the Mountains of Eastern Cuba, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fabian A. Michelangeli, Ph.D.<\/a>, is an Associate Curator of the Institute of Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>. His research focuses in part on the evolution, identification, and classification of neotropical plants.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Cuba-Nov-2013-11-of-14\"<\/a>
A rainbow appears near a family farm near Moa in the province of Holguin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A recent expedition to eastern Cuba took three Cuban colleagues and me from the coast to\u00a0the cloud forests in search of rare and locally restricted species in the plant family\u00a0known as princess flower or\u00a0meadow beauty. The species\u00a0in this family\u00a0(whose scientific name is Melastomataceae) are an especially diverse group in Cuba.<\/p>\n

Joining me were\u00a0Dr. Eldis Becquer from the Jardin Botanico Nacional (National Botanical Garden) in Havana; Wilder Carmenate, director of the Holguin Botanical Garden; and Jose Luis Gomez, a researcher\u00a0at the Holguin\u00a0garden and\u00a0a graduate student at the University of Havana. Becquer, Carmenate and I are studying the\u00a0Melastomataceae while Gomez and Carmenate\u00a0took advantage of this expedition to document invasive species\u2014part of ongoing research projects developed by Carmenate to study threats to the flora of Cuba.<\/p>\n

The first area we targeted was the Turquino National Park in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of southeastern Cuba. This\u00a0park contains some of the best-preserved cloud forests in the Caribbean, as well as the Pico Turquino, the tallest mountain on the island at almost 6,500 feet. During five days spent in the area, we reached the summit of three of the highest points in Cuba\u2014Picos Turquino, Joaquin, and Regino\u2014and we collected plants\u00a0on both the southern, Caribbean-facing slope and the northern, inland-facing slope of the Sierra Maestra. This allowed us to contrast different exposures to rain and sun, as well as different soil types and vegetation.
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From the Sierra Maestra, we crossed the island towards\u00a0the Sierra de Moa Mountains on the northeastern coast. For the next few days, we centered our collections around the locality of La Melba in the Alejandro de Humboldt National Park, where in a very short distance we could go from the coast up through pine forests and to the summit of the mountain, with rain or cloud forests.<\/p>\n

Lastly we collected in areas near the city of Moa in the Cerro Miraflores, in coastal serpentine deposits in Yamaniguey, and inside the mining concession of Santa Teresita. This last locality was especially important because it is scheduled to be opened to mining in the near future, so this could be one of the last\u00a0chances to document the species\u00a0that are there.\u00a0It is the habitat of many plants that are\u00a0rare or\u00a0endemic, meaning they are found only in that place.<\/p>\n

\"Eldis<\/a>
Eldis Becquer on an unnamed creek on the Caribbean slope of the Sierra Maestra<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At all localities, we relied on\u00a0the logistical support of the national park system of Cuba or the Office of Flora and Fauna (equivalent to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service). They\u00a0provided housing at\u00a0local lodges or ranger houses, helped with food, and provided us with work space to process our samples. Local park rangers at every site also joined us as guides and helped\u00a0collect plants.\u00a0An important part of our activities was to train them to\u00a0identify not only rare plants but also\u00a0aggressive invasive species that are being targeted for removal.<\/p>\n

In total, we collected more than\u00a070 species of Melastomataceae.\u00a0Of these, more than\u00a080 percent\u00a0are found only in Cuba and 90 percent only in the Caribbean islands, underscoring the high level of endemism in the forests of these\u00a0islands. In the coming weeks, Science Talk<\/em> will detail some of the species collected during our time in the mountains of Cuba.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The picturesque mountains of Cuba host a surprising variety of rare and endemic plant species.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[116],"tags":[345,225,347,346,594],"yoast_head":"\nExploring the Mountains of Eastern Cuba, Part I - Science Talk Archive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/exploring-the-mountains-of-eastern-cuba-part-i\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Exploring the Mountains of Eastern Cuba, Part I - Science Talk Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The picturesque mountains of Cuba host a surprising variety of rare and endemic plant species.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/exploring-the-mountains-of-eastern-cuba-part-i\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Science Talk Archive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-04-24T20:38:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-04-24T20:39:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Cuba-Nov-2013-1-of-14.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"534\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fabian Michelangeli\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/\",\"name\":\"Science Talk Archive\",\"description\":\"Exploring the science of plants, from the field to the lab\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/exploring-the-mountains-of-eastern-cuba-part-i\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Cuba-Nov-2013-1-of-14.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Cuba-Nov-2013-1-of-14.jpg\",\"width\":800,\"height\":534,\"caption\":\"Pico Turquino, the highest mountain in Cuba\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/exploring-the-mountains-of-eastern-cuba-part-i\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/04\/exploring-the-mountains-of-eastern-cuba-part-i\/\",\"name\":\"Exploring the Mountains of Eastern Cuba, Part I - 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