Floristic diversity of Paredón Grande key, Ciego de Ávila, Cuba

Abstract

Jardines del Rey Archipelago has been exploited for tourism purposes since the decade of the ’90 of the last century. Nowadays, the prospection and exploitation of new key continues, with impacts over its biological diversity. One of those new exploited keys is Paredón Grande key. Due to the levels of vegetation clearing suffered by wide areas of this key, it’s necessary the knowledge of its associated diversity, and also its monitoring and management. The present work shows the actualized list of phanerogam species o Paredón Grande key, Ciego de Ávila, Cuba. We found a diverse flora, with many Neotropical species with high floristic affinity with both Coco key and with the Bahamas archipelago, since its proximity. It was low the percentage of endemic and threated species. The results constitute a useful record for future biogeographical, taxonomical and ecological studies.