Welcome to Paramo Plants Online

Páramos are tropical "alpine" ecosystems located above the forest line in the northern region of the Andes. They have a characteristic and unique biota that is the result of complex evolutionary processes, not well understood yet. This has produced a high number of endemic plant and animal species, distributed in an archipelago-like environment highly threatened by global warming. Although distributed biodiversity informatics databases have facilitated access to information regarding species occurrence, ecosystem based datasets are wanting.

Knowledge of species representation in the páramos can be used to establish a baseline for the study of the evolutionary patterns and processes of the páramo biota, understand their ecological interactions, and aid in conservation efforts. This project has the general objective of gathering and constructing an online accessible relational database of the flora of the Páramos including georeferenced specimen data, synonymy of scientific names, maps, references to protected areas and references to related published works.

Páramos present a unique and characteristic flora distributed in an archipelagic pattern, the result of complex orogenic and evolutionary processes. Páramo ecosystems are under great threat due to expansion of agricultural frontier, invasive species and global warming. Páramo flora is well studied but not really known in the sense that it has been widely collected and identified, but the “biological” map of the páramo archipelago has not been drawn.

Biodiversity informatics databases although searchable by taxonomy or political geography, lack datasets to ecosystem diversity. Biological data referring to páramo biota is being stored in several institutions and bibliographic references that are segregated and have different criteria of data storing and sharing. Taxonomies of páramo flora used are not standardized. Geographical information found on most specimens collected in páramo ecosystem refers to geopolitical entities at different levels. The Páramo ecosystem does not respond to political geography.