ERROR: Translation not found 'view_all_capitalized'
Visión general
Abstracto
Studies of epiphyll ecology have been hindered by the biochemical and morphological variability of the leaf substrate. The use of artificial (plastic ribbon tape) leaves solved that problem in a study done at the Braulio Carrillo National Park, Costa Rica. It showed that after nine months of field exposure, relative epiphyll cover was similar in five leaf shapes and two sizes. Driptips do not affect epiphyll cover, which was four times higher under a clearing than in the shaded understory, for all leaf shapes and sizes. The leaves of certain species appear to be prefer-red or avoided by epiphylls, but the reasons for this are poorly known (review in Richards 1984). Olarinmoye (1975) and Monge-Nájera (1989) have analysed the influence of light, as well as some leaf characters, by comparing forest and clearing leaves of several species and age classes. Nevertheless, both authors concluded that the use of several leaf species obscured the individual role of ecological factors (Richards 1984, Monge-Nájera 1989). To overcome this difficulty, a study in Monteverde, Costa Rica, additionally compared leaves of a single species of Piper (Monge-Nájera 1989), but the single-species approach offers a very limited set of leaf characteristics to compare. This paper presents a further step in the isolation of factors influencing epiphyll cover, obtained by the use of artificial leaves, a technique inspired in the discovery that some epiphylls grow on artificial substrates (Winkler 1967). Colonization on artificial leaves is not influenced by specific biochemical or microstructural differences in the substrate, allowing the strict experimental manipulation of factors such as leaf shape and size.
