High mountain vascular flora in Argentine Patagonia

Abstract

Knowledge of the local biodiversity is extremely important to design conservation strategies. The goals of the present work are to provide a list of native species recorded in the high mountains of Argentine Patagonia, with comments about their distribution, habitat and habit, and to identify the most vulnerable species for inhabiting small geographical areas and/or have populations with few individuals, for inhabit specific habitats, for not being included in protected areas and/or inhabiting territories subject to human activities. This annotated list, resulting from the field survey of 111 mountains between 1992 and 2022, includes 550 native species belonging to 185 genera and 69 families. Of these, 124 species have restricted geographic distributions, 69 are exclusive to high mountains, and 13 species and 10 populations are in a vulnerable situation. The data in this contribution are important for future decisions when preparing management plans for existing protected areas, to evaluate the creation of new reserves, and as a database for future comparisons.