In the latest issue of the Tropical Dispatch, Bruce Holst gives an update on the Roraima-tepui project. Roraima-tepui is a spectacular table mountain in SE Venezuela that juts prominently from the lowland forest. It is home to over 200 species of vascular plants, some which grow nowhere else in the world. The goals of this project are to conduct a thorough, modern botanical inventory of the mountain which was scaled for the first time in 1884 and compare our results with that expedition and others that followed in order to rediscover and map the distribution of twenty five rare plant species, to evaluate certain vegetation formations for possible long-term studies of the effects of climate change on the flora of the tepuis, and to gather data and photographs of the summit flora for use in a future book.
Three partner institutions are involved in the project, the Institute of Botany in Barcelona, the Botanical Institute Foundation of Caracas, Venezuela, and Selby Botanical Gardens. Major funding for the work is provided by the BBVA Foundation of Spain (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, also known as the First Bank of Spain) and partner institutions.
Photo Credit: Shingo Nozawa