Vascular epiphytes in dry oak forests show resilience to anthropogenic disturbance, Cordillera Oriental, Colombia

We compared the richness and biomass of vascular epiphytes in six seasonally semi-deciduous oak (Quercus humboldtii) forest fragments of varying structure, using the SVERA protocol. Bromeliads dominated epiphytic vegetation in terms of richness, 10 out of a total of 17 species, and biomass (98%), but overall epiphyte community development was poor in comparison with neotropical wet mountain forests. Epiphyte richness and biomass was similar in all fragments, except one bottom-valley fragment, despite large differences in anthropogenic-induced forest structure. We hypothesize that epiphyte resilience to disturbance in these dry oak forest fragments is due to tolerance of the local epiphyte species to desiccation, overriding micro-climatic differences between forest fragments of different structure.