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INTRODUCTION A total of 250 species of Pteridophytes has been recorded for the Reserva Biológica San Francisco (RBSF), including five newly described species from the vicinity of Podocarpus National Park (Lehnert 2006a, b) that are endemic to the region, or at least to Ecuador. Covered here is the RBSF from 1800 to 3140 m, where ca. 380 collections of ferns and fern allies were gathered by the first author for the DFG project “Cryptogamic plant diversity of the Purdiaea nutans forest in southern Ecuador and its relationship to soil, climate, and vegetation structure”. Within the framework of the larger project, the frequently used comparative study site, Bombuscaro near Zamora, is not included here because no extensive collections were made there by the authors. Since we focused our efforts primarily on the Purdiaea nutans forest, which covers the ridges between 2000 and 2600 m in the RBSF, our list for that area is fairly complete and well supported by collections. Less studied are the queb- radas and the subpáramo zone of the reserve. Thus future collections are highly likely to further increase the total number of pteridophyte species known from the RBSF. The major reference for this study was the check- list of Ecuador (Jørgensen & León-Yánez 1999), which lists more than 1300 species of ferns and fern allies for the country; 177 are considered as endemics for Ecuador (Valencia et al. 2000). VOUCHER INFORMATION Collectors: ML = Marcus Lehnert, FW = Florian Wer- ner. Voucher specimens have been deposited in Quito (QCA), Loja (LOJA), Göttingen (GOET), and Ber- keley (UC), unless otherwise mentioned. ADDITIONAL ABBREVIATIONS (for further abbreviations see general introduction to this volume) Life form: e = epiphyte; t = terrestrial; s = saxicolous. Aquatics have not been found. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Alan R. Smith (UC), Robbin C. Moran (NY), and Benjamin Øllgaard (AAU) for help with the determination of difficult fern groups. REFERENCES Jørgensen, P.M., & S. León-Yánez (eds.). 1999. Catalogue of the vascular plants of Ecuador. Monogr. Syst. Bot. Missouri Bot. Gard. 75: i–viii, 1–1182. Lehnert, M. 2006a. Two new species of tree ferns (Cyathea- ceae) from Ecuador. Brittonia 58(1): 4–9. Lehnert, M. 2006b. New species and records of tree ferns (Cyatheaceae, Pteridophyta) in the northern Andes. Organisms, Diversity & Evolution. 6: Electr. Suppl. 13: 1–11. Valencia, R., Pitman, N., León-Yánez, S., & P.M. Jørgensen. (eds.). 2000. Libro rojo de las plantas raras del Ecuador 2000. Herbario QCA, Pontifica Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito. 59 ECOTROPICAL MONOGRAPHS No. 4: 59–68, 2007 © Society for Tropical Ecology 03 PTERIDOPHYTES CHECKLIST RESERVA BIOLÓGICA SAN FRANCISCO (PROV. ZAMORA-CHINCHIPE, S. ECUADOR) Marcus Lehnert 1 , Michael Kessler 1 , Laura I. Salazar 2 , Hugo Navarrete 2 , Florian A. Werner 1 , S. Robbert Gradstein 1 1 Department of Systematic Botany, Albrecht-von-Haller-Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Göttingen, Untere Karspüle 2, D-37073 Göttingen – Germany 2 Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito – Ecuador e-mail: [email protected]
