The Lacandon Forest (Chiapas, Mexico):: A benchmark area for tropical mosses

A set of 700 moss specimens from the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve accounts,for a list of 136 species and varieties, including ten species new to Mexico, for the Lacandon Forest of eastern Chiapas. With the addition of eight published reports, a total of 144 taxa are now recorded from major habitats in this area. The Caribbean relationships in this moss flora, with 82 species, are the most important while endemic taxa are virtually absent. Although the neotropical character of the Lacandon Forest moss flora is further emphasized by eleven Meso-American species, the widely distributed groups are also represented; 31 pantropical and 14 disjunct taxa are shared with other tropical areas. The patterns of distribution, the life-forms, and the structural diversity of mosses are features that should be preserved in eastern Chiapas in order to maintain biological attributes that have been eliminated from other tropical areas in Mexico.