Background and Aims:

The tropical dry forest is one of the most threatened ecosystems in the world, mainly due to anthropic and environmental effects. The inventory of vascular flora in dry forest fragments during a period of low rainfall in the subregion North, Center and South of the department Magdalena, Colombia, is presented.

Methods:

A floristic inventory was carried out, at six sampling points with five transects (0.1 ha) in each one, distributed randomly, totaling 0.6 ha. All plants with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 1 cm and a minimum height of 1.5 m were included in the census and the growth form was recorded. Fieldwork was carried out from November 2019 to February 2020. The species were identified using taxonomic keys and consulting online collections, the names were corroborated in IPNI and the Catalogue of plants and lichens of Colombia. The veracity of the sampling was verified through accumulation curves and a correlation was made between the values of richness and precipitation.

Key results:

One hundred ninety-one species were registered, distributed in 52 families, the most represented being Fabaceae (47) and Bignoniaceae (16). The most frequent species was Handroanthus chrysanthus and the growth habit was the tree (65%). The non-parametric Bootstrap indicator was the most suitable for the number of expected species, providing a completeness percentage of 87.26%. The precipitation data were not correlated significantly (R=0.53 y P=0.27) with the total richness inventoried.

Conclusions:

This inventory will allow generating new scientific contributions of the flora in the tropical dry forest of the Magdalena department. The dominance of species such as Handroanthus chrysanthus and Bursera simaruba may be due to morphological adaptations expressed in physiological mechanisms to tolerate periods without precipitation.

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