Plant diversity and conservation status of two localities with seminatural vegetation patches of Cacocum municipality, Holguín, Cuba

Abstract

The Cacocum municipality is one of the least explored floristically in the Holguín province, fundamentally because the natural vegetation has practically disappeared as a result of agricultural and livestock activity. However, there are some isolated patches of semi-natural vegetation. To contribute to increasing knowledge of the floristic diversity of the Cacocum municipality, two locations with remnants of semi-natural vegetation were explored, Concepción Infante and Melones, where floristic lists were made and specimens were collected to deposit in Cuban herbaria. In addition, the conservation status of the vegetation was evaluated by calculating habitat fragmentation metrics and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. 128 taxa were recorded, belonging to 100 genera and 47 families; among them, 16 are endemic, 11 are threatened and 14 are naturalized exotics, considered invasive. α-diversity was higher in Melones (94 species) than in Concepción Infante (60 species), while β-diversity between sites was 0.88. In both locations, indicators of vegetation degradation such as cattle grazing, invasion by exotic species and very small patches of vegetation were recorded. The effects of fragmentation were more severe in Concepción Infante, a locality with proportionally smaller patches, lower species diversity, a greater number of invasive species and significantly lower values ​​of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Despite the anthropization suffered, these results suggest that both localities could be managed to preserve the floristic values ​​that they still possess.