Botanists have identified a new plant species, Amalophyllon miraculum, in a small forest fragment in northwestern Ecuador, highlighting the importance of preserving even small patches of threatened ecosystems.
Conservation organizations are working with local landowners to protect remaining forest areas and cultivate rare species, emphasizing the ecological and human benefits of preserving these ecosystems.posted during the summer of 2022. He and his team have just spotted a tiny, new-to-science plant species in a rare patch of northwestern Ecuadorian forest., an undescribed plant barely 5 centimeters tall, found clinging to a large boulder in a forest fragment near the town of Santo Domingo.
“When I mention howler monkeys, most people think of the Amazon, but you used to know you were getting away from Quito and close to Guayaquil because you could hear the monkeys howling,” Clark said. “It’s incredible how much that landscape has changed. Now you have wholesale deforestation.” The new species Amalophyllon miraculum on the Western slopes of the Andes. Figure from Clark et al 2024.
These agrarian laws led to a flurry of deforestation that lasted into the 1990s, leaving what experts estimate is less than 10% of all forests in northwestern Ecuador intact.