
Susana León YánezPontifical Catholic University of Ecuador | PUCE · Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas
Susana León Yánez
M.Sc.
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44
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Introduction
Susana León Yánez is an Ecuadorian botanist, Professor at the Escuela de Ciencias Biológicas, and Director of the Herbarium QCA, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. Her research interests include Ecology, Paleoecology, Botany and Conservation of Andean Ecosystems.
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
January 2000 - May 2017
January 2000 - present
Education
January 1998 - December 1999
Publications
Publications (44)
The analysis ofmodern pollen rain is an important prerequisite for detailed and comprehensive studies on fossil
pollen assemblages, as it is necessary for obtaining valuable information about present pollen spectra in a more
quantitative way. At present, several samplingmedia are used for modern pollen rain collection in tropical environments,
with...
The last 15,000 years of vegetation, fire and climate history were reconstructed from the Laguna Natosa Peat bog core (3600 m elevation) in the Páramo of Jimbura region in the Cordillera Real, close to the Peruvian border of southern Ecuador in the southernmost part of the Andean depression.The pollen record, dated by 5 radiocarbon dates, indicates...
Forests dominated by Polylepis pauta occur in humid environments in the high Andes of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, at elevations between 3500-4500 m. Polylepis forests host a unique biodiversity of plants and animals and are an important supply of resources for local people. However, these forests are being destroyed by extensive burning practices, c...
The last ca. 4100 cal yr BP of palaeoenviromental conditions in the Llanganates National Park, central Ecuadorian Andes, has been reconstructed from the pollen record ‘Anteojos Valley’ (3984 m elevation). The pollen record, dated with four radiocarbon dates, indicates that the local páramo vegetation was relatively stable with only minor fluctuatio...
Long histories of human occupation are emerging for the wet forests of the Andean flank, even ones that are apparently ‘pristine’. The past habitations were societally and temporally complex with sophisticated cultures emerging, flourishing, and disappearing. The Upano River in eastern Ecuador supported such cultures, and yet the timing of occupati...
The Ecuadorian Amazon holds more biodiversity than most other places on Earth. Palms are a particularly dominant component of the vegetation; however, it remains unknown to what degree the pattern has persisted through time. Here, we investigate the persistence of palm dominance through time and the degree to which past human activities (e.g., fire...
A robust understanding of the impact of anthropogenic activities on high-altitude tropical aquatic ecosystems is key for the conservation and protection of the Tropical Andean biodiversity hot spot. We present the results of a multiproxy study of lake sediments from the high Andean páramo of El Cajas National Park, a UNESCO biosphere reserve in Ecu...
A high-resolution paleoecological record provides a 2690 year-long fossil pollen and charcoal history from Lake Ayauch ⁱ , Ecuador, in lowland Amazonia. The record begins with a landscape that is already partially deforested and in which maize is being grown. Dated charcoal fragments from local soils coincide with fire events and peaks of land clea...
Tropical forests are highly diverse at many spatial scales. In these forests, small‐sized canopy organisms can form species‐rich communities already within a few cm ² . Understanding how species numbers increase when expanding the sampling along the tree and the forest is critical for evaluating the processes maintaining biodiversity. We therefore...
The Haggard’s leaf-eared mouse Phyllotis haggardi is a rodent endemic to Ecuador and almost nothing about its ecology has ever been recorded in detail. In this note we report for the first time that the diet of P. haggardi includes spores of Phlegmariurus crassus, a common lycophyte of the Andean Paramos. This is a remarkable record since the consu...
The relative abundance of n-alkanes of different chain lengths obtained from ancient soils and sediments have been used to reconstruct past environmental changes. However, interpretation of ancient n-alkane patterns relies primarily on modern plant wax n-alkane patterns measured from leaves. Little is still known about how n-alkane patterns, and en...
Polylepis
forests are the world’s highest forests in terms of elevation and host a unique biodiversity of plants and animals. Unfortunately, these forests are rapidly disappearing due to human impact and are one of the most threatened ecosystems of South America. This paper deals with liverwort diversity in Polylepis forests of Ecuador. Liverworts...
El boletín 3 de FUNBOTANICA presenta dos artículos, uno que presenta la lista de referencias bibliográficas sobre botánica económica, etnobotánica y manejo de recursos vegetales en el Ecuador, y otro que recopila la bibliografía referente a estudios de taxonomía en el país. El primer artículo es una investigación científica que compila 538 publicac...
Abstract. Plant wax n -alkane biomarkers obtained from ancient soils and sediments have been used to reconstruct past environmental changes. However, the interpretation of these ancient n -alkane patterns relies primarily on our understanding of modern plant wax n -alkane patterns measured from leaves. Very little is known about how n -alkane patte...
This book provides descriptions and illustrations of common genera of mosses, liverworts and hornworts of the northern Andes together with a general introduction on classification, structure and function of bryophytes (in Spanish language)
It remains poorly understood how the composition of leaf wax n‐alkanes reflects the local environment. This knowledge gap inhibits the interpretation of plant responses to the environment at the community level and, by extension, inhibits the applicability of n‐alkane patterns as a proxy for past environments. Here, we studied the n‐alkane patterns...
The characterization of modern pollen rain assemblages along environmental gradients is an essential prerequisite for reliable interpretations of fossil pollen records. In this study, we identify pollen-vegetation relationships using modern pollen rain assemblages in moss polsters (n = 13) and lake sediment surface samples (n = 11) along a steep te...
The vascular plants of the Americas
Botanical exploration in the Americas has a history that stretches back for half a millennium, with knowledge assembled in diverse regional floras and lists. Ulloa Ulloa et al. present a comprehensive and integrated compilation of all known native New World vascular plant species (see the Perspective by Givnish)....
The pollen record from Lagunas de Mojanda, located at 3748 m a.s.l. (northern Ecuadorian Andes) reflects the vegetation and climate dynamics for the last ca 3400 cal yr BP. Páramo vegetation has been the main vegetation type since the beginning of the record. At Lagunas de Mojanda, from the last ca 3400 to 2200 cal yr BP, grass páramo was well repr...
Globally, a majority of people use plants as a primary source of healthcare and introduced plants are increasingly discussed as medicine. Protecting this resource for human health depends upon understanding which plants are used and how use patterns will change over time. The increasing use of introduced plants in local pharmacopoeia has been expla...
Introduced medicinal plants with cultivation status.
(PDF)
Richness of native and introduced species by province.
(PDF)
Treatment target categories and search criteria.
(PDF)
Ecuador has a very diverse bryophyte flora with about 950 species of mosses and 700 of liverworts and hornworts. Nevertheless, the distribution of the species within the country remains incompletely explored and many species are only known from very few collections. This paper presents new additions to the liverwort and hornwort flora of Ecuador. T...
La protección del patrimonio natural del Ecuador representa un reto
para todos, especialmente si se considera que la desaparición de las
especies endémicas o restringidas exclusivamente al Ecuador implica
su extinción global. La información básica acerca de las especies,
los ecosistemas y su estado de conservación sigue siendo insuficiente
para cua...
RESUMEN Se analizaron los patrones de distribución de las orquídeas endémicas del Ecuador con Sistemas de Información Geográfico (SIG) y Análisis Parsimónico de Endemismo (PAE) los cuales indican que la mayor parte de orquídeas endémicas se encuentran en los bosques montanos bajos. Adicionalmente sugieren que la composición florística del norte y s...
Abstract
Bryophytes are a significant component of the natural vegetation of Ecuador, yet have been insufficiently explored. This publication is the first attempt to catalogue the liverworts and hornworts of Ecuador. Here we present a synthesis of floristic records published since the early 19th century. In Ecuador, 695 species of liverworts have b...
Concerns about elevated extinction rates in the tropics are a common feature of the conservation literature, but direct measurements are rare. We present the first quantitative estimates of extinction rate in a complete Neotropical flora based on historical plant-collection records, quantitative measurements of forest loss and plant diversity, and...
EcoCiencia es una entidad científica ecuatoriana, privada y sin fines de lucro creada en 1989, cuya misión es conservar la biodiversidad mediante la investi-gación científica, la recuperación del conocimiento tradicional y la educación ambiental, impulsando formas de vida armoniosas entre el ser humano y la naturaleza. Su Unidad de Geografía, con e...