Orchidaceae in Santa Catarina : Update , geographic distribution and conservation

This study consists of a checklist and an analysis of the spatial distribution of the species of Orchidaceae of the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. Based on literature, the accepted names and current synonyms for the species in the state are cited. The occurrence of 121 genera and 560 accepted species was detected, 12 of them endemic. Of the three subfamilies represented in the state, Epidendroideae is the most representative, with 94 genera and 432 species, followed by Orchidoideae with 25 genera and 122 species, and Vanilloideae, with only two genera and six species. According to the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, 24 species fall within the vulnerable category, seven are endangered and four are critically endangered. The life form, plant formation and habitat of each species are also presented.


INTRODUCTION
In Brazil, current estimations suggest the occurrence of 291 genera and 2539 species of Orchidaceae.Of these, 1632 are endemic (Barros et al. 2013), 72 are reported as rare by Giulietti et al. (2005), and 34 are listed in the "Lista Oϐicial das Espécies Brasileiras Ameaçadas de Extinção" (MMA 2008).
Until the publications of Pabst andDungs (1975, 1977) taxonomic studies of the Brazilian species of Orchidaceae were relatively scarce.Subsequently, a reasonable volume of research has been undertaken in the country.However, these studies are generally concentrated in institutions where there are experts in the family, and usually discuss the ϐlora of delimited regions of a state, such as Barros (1983), Menini Neto et al. (2004, 2007), and Azevedo and van den Berg (2007).Swarts and Dixon (2009) recommend the use of Orchidaceae as a model group for optimization of the conservation of plants in general, however, the state of Santa Catarina (SC) still does not have a resident expert who is devoted to the family, and therefore this important component of the forests of the state still needs proper attention.The sampling effort in the state is considerable, but the lack of more careful attention to the family is reϐlected in the herbaria collections and data published in SC.According to the online data of the herbarium FLOR, from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, which has among its depositories important collectors in the state, such as R. Reitz, R.M. Klein and J.A. Rohr, the family represents less than 3% of the herbarium collection, and appears in the ninth position among the families with more records.
Amongst the publications with reference to Orchidaceae in SC, we can quote initially the lists of Pabst (1951Pabst ( , 1952Pabst ( , 1953Pabst ( , 1954Pabst ( , 1956Pabst ( , 1957Pabst ( , 1959)), Pabst andDungs (1975, 1977), Rohr (1951) and further, Klein et to 1827 m above sea level, with 77% of its territory above 300 m and 52% above 600 m.In general, relief ensues, from east to west, as coastal lowlands, Serra do Mar, paleozoic plateau and basaltic plateau.Rainfall is well distributed throughout the year with a small decrease in winter (Pandolfo et al. 2002).The vegetation of SC can be subdivided into Tropical Ombrophilous Forests and associated ecosystems to the east, Araucaria Forests, highelevation grasslands and cloud forests to the west and Seasonal Deciduous Forest to the southwest (Klein 1978).

Data Collection
The old literature with references to the state, as aforementioned, was digitized and an initial database was constructed.This initial database was compared with the list of Orchidaceae for Brazil (Barros et al. 2010).Then, nomenclatural updates were made, as well as the selection of a voucher or bibliographic reference for each species occurring in SC.The herbarium FLOR was chosen as the initial reference for the vouchers, followed by the herbaria FURB, HB, HBR and SP.For species not available in the aforementioned herbaria , information available on the network SpeciesLink from the "Centro de Referência em Informação Ambiental" (CRIA 2013) or directly on the websites of the herbaria AMES, BR, HBG, HUEFS, ICN, K, NY, P, R, RB, S, UPCB, US and W (acronyms according to Thiers 2012), were used.In the absence of any herbarium vouchers we used a bibliographic reference indicating the occurrence in SC.In the case of not being a new citation, we used only the last reference as a source to indicate the taxon for the state.
The framework of the taxa in the categories of threat was made based on the Red List from "Centro Nacional de Conservação da Flora" (CNCFlora 2013), using the criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN 2012).Information about the life form, plant formation and environment were obtained from literature, data sheets and personal notes.
We used 2661 geo-referenced records, deposited in the collections of the herbaria previously cited for the construction of cartograms, using the software DIVA-GIS (available from http://www.diva-gis.org)and QGIS (available from http://www.qgis.org).For records without information about coordinates we used the coordinates of the centre of the municipality obtained by geoLoc tool (available from http://splink.cria.org.br/geoloc).

RESULTS
A total of 121 genera and 560 species were registered, 58 of which were not previously referred to the state by Barros et al. (2013) on the "Lista de Espécies da Flora do Brasil".Thirty-eight taxa were cited for the ϐirst time in this study, these were detected only in the collections of the herbaria consulted or in the literature as synonyms (Table 1).
From the total, 12 species are endemic to SC (Table 1).Of the six life forms detected in Orchidaceae species from state of SC, 351 species are exclusively epiphytic and 131 are exclusively terricolous; two are exclusively mycoheterotrophic, vine or rupicolous.Only two species present three life forms at the same time.None are exclusively saxicolous (Figure 1).Twenty-three species are classiϐied as vulnerable: one Vanilloideae, two Orchidoideae and 20 Epidendroideae; seven species are classiϐied as endangered: two Orchidoideae, ϐive Epidendroideae, and four as critically endangered: three Epidendroideae, and one Orchidoideae (Figure 2).

DISCUSSION
Major circumscription changes occurred in several genera of Orchidaceae due to the recent phylogenetic studies.The megagenera Oncidium Sw. and Pleurothallis R.Br., are examples of taxa subdivided into several smaller genera and thus, contrary to what has happened so far, none of the two genera as currently interpreted, have records in the state.Likewise, the name of the ϐlower symbol of the state, Laelia purpurata Lindl.& Paxton (Lindley and Paxton 1853), is currently accepted as Cattleya purpurata (Lindl.& Paxton) Van den Berg according van den Berg (2008).

Distribution Analysis
Generally there is a strong relation between number of records observed and species richness (Figures 3-4).This congruence can be mainly related to two factors: (1) proximity to research institutions with regions with more records, and (2) the state of conservation of the remaining forests and associated ecosystems of the state.
Although the ϐinancial and structural difϐiculties undergone by Brazilian researchers are little commented, these are notorious.Such difϐiculties are particularly evident in studies on biodiversity, especially those related to descriptive taxonomy, where research is labelled as complex, expensive and time consuming (Gardner et al. 2008).Because of these difϐiculties, taxonomists, in ϐield research, tend to move as close as possible to their institution or to places with good infrastructure.This can be observed in Orchidaceae vouchers in herbaria, and the visit repetition of the same local and municipal collections that are reϐlected in the maps on the overall distribution of the subfamilies of Orchidaceae (Figure 5) as well as records observed (Figure 3).
The Atlantic Forest was one of the largest forests in the tropics, originally covering 150 million hectares.Currently, with about 11% of its original area, it is represented by sparsely distributed fragments that hardly exceed 100 hectares (Ranta et al. 1998;Ribeiro et al. 2009).In SC, 80% of the remnants of this formation have no more than 50 hectares (Vibrans et al. 2012(Vibrans et al. , 2013)).Silva and Casteleti (2003) divided the Atlantic Forest into eight biogeographic subregions (BSR), later, Ribeiro et al. (2009), in a study  that quantiϐied and analyzed the spatial distribution of the remnants of this plant formation, pointed BSR "Serra do Mar" as the most conserved, with 36.5% of its original vegetation.In this subregion are the three largest fragments, in the most advanced stage of succession.The coastline of SC is home to the third largest of them (Figure 6; Ribeiro et al. 2009).Well preserved natural spaces known today as the "Parque Nacional da Serra do Itajaí" and the "Santa Catarina Island", which is considered as the paradise of orchidologists by Hoehne (1949), lie in this region.Exactly in this region of the state are the largest number of records (Figure 3) and the highest species richness of Orchidaceae (Figure 4).The congruence between remnants preserved (Figure 6) and species richness is an indication that the sampling effort (number of records, Figure 3) is valid; however, insufϐicient since the estimated richness (Figure 4, lower) is greater than the richness observed (Figure 4, upper).Orchidaceae family is the biggest and more charismatic between angiosperms, nevertheless the ϐield inventory of Orchidaceae in state of SC is incomplete and as pointed out by Prance et al. (2000) more detailed studies of local selected areas are needed to complete it.New species and biogeographic data managed by taxonomists can improve our knowledge allowing a rational use of ecosystems.

FIGURE 2 .FIGURE 1 .
FIGURE 2. Categories of threat to Orchidaceae species in the state of Santa Catarina: CR = critically endangered, EN = endangered and VU = vulnerable.

FIGURE 3 .
FIGURE 3. Distribution of the records of Orchidaceae in the state of Santa Catarina.

FIGURE 4 .FIGURE 5 .
FIGURE 4. Species richness of Orchidaceae founded (upper) and estimated (lower) in the state of Santa Catarina.