EVALUATION OF LEAF HARVESTING EFFECT ON Chamaedorea quezalteca Standl. & Steyerm. (PALMAE), IN THE EL TRIUNFO BIOSPHERE RESERVE, CHIAPAS, MEXICO

The leaves of the Chamaedorea quezalteca palm are an important non-timber forest resource for the dwellers of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, Mexico. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of artificial defoliation during one year (July 2008 to July 2009) on leaf production, mortality and reproduction of C. quezalteca at three sites of the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, Chiapas, Mexico. Six hundred individuals were selected in three size categories defined by the number of stems (1-3, 4-6 and \u3e 7). The experimental design was mixed factorial with two fixed factors (treatment and size) and one random (site), and forest cover as a covariate, with three treatments of defoliation (30, 60 and 100 %) and the control (0 %); an analysis of variance was performed with the data. The production of leaves was significant (p \u3c = 0.05) in relation to plant size and intensity of defoliation, but such response depended on the combination of factor levels. Leaf production increased with harvest intensity (defoliation) and size categories. During the experiment, eight individuals were recorded dead and 20 % of all the selected individuals lost one or more stems. No differences were found (p \u3c = 0.05) between treatments and the control in the production of inflorescences and infructescences between the start of the experiment and after one year, nor in fruit production after a year. Results indicate that leaf harvest in an annual period increased leaf production but did not change the reproduction and survival of individuals