Transición bosque altoandino – páramo: composición, estructura y fisonomía de la vegetación en la Cordillera Central de Colombia

In the paramune regions from the northern Andes, the high Andean-paramo transition belt is diverse, variable, and understudied. The objective of this paper was to analyze 1) the composition, 2) the structure and 3) the physiognomy of the vegetation from this transition belt in the Belmira-Santa Inés para-mo based on the Páramos Delimitation Methodology of Colombia. A total of 176 species were recorded according to the predictions there was no clear pattern in the richness distribution, diversity, and I.V.I. along the transition. At the composition level, a high turnover of species and families between sites and transition belts stands out, for which a species inventory is here provided. Thirteen life forms are typi-fied being the tree, shrub, and herb life form the most abundant. The distribution of heights verified the tendency to decrease in the vertical gradient of the forest towards the upslope. Finally, the characteri-zation of the physiognomic units described in this study shows that to delimitate the transition, besides the tall rosette–shrubland and the shrubland typologies, it is necessary to include the bromeliad forest and scandent forest units, since all together they represent a complex mosaic of plant communities that are scattered throughout the forest-paramo transition.