Vol. 35 No. 1 (2024)

Leah Veldhuisen, Mary Carolina Garcia Lino, Erin Bodine, Julián Aguirre-Santoro, Rachel Jabaily

Abstract. The Andes are a hotspot for biodiversity and high species endemism for both plants and animals. The genus Puya (Bromeliaceae) lives throughout the Andes, including puna and the páramo ecosystems above 3500m. Here, we studied the life history in three species of Puya: P. raimondii in the Bolivian puna, and P. cryptantha and P. goudotiana in the Colombian páramo. We collected data on threshold size at flowering and clonal reproduction. All three species were found to have a consistent minimum size at flowering, while neither of the clonally reproducing species, P. cryptantha & P. goudotiana, demonstrated a minimum size for clonal reproduction. We also found a positive correlation between leaf length and fruit number for P. cryptantha. Our data supported that P. raimondii is fully semelparous and indicated that P. goudotiana and P. cryptantha may be semi-semelparous.

Keywords: Andes, puna, páramo, semelparity, semisemelparous

(Published October 1, 2024)