Prospecting of plant species in Pastaza province, Ecuador

Abstract

In order to identify by means of prospecting and use of multivariate methods, the vegetal species and their relation with the different agro climatic and socio-cultural characteristics in Pastaza region, Ecuador, a survey to 213 producers was applied, in which sociocultural aspects, description of agro climatic characteristics and use of plant species were considered. The data were analyzed using multivariate techniques of dimensions reduction analysis for the qualitative data and of main components for the quantitative ones. These analyses showed in the Alfa de Cronbach coefficient values higher than 0.7, indicating adequate structure of the survey and the KMO coefficient also with values higher than 0.7, ratifying the number of surveyed producers. In qualitative data, the canton is the main source of variability, while the ethnic minority. In qualitative data, the canton is the main source of variability, while the ethnic is the lower. In qualitative data, the analysis of rotated components generated three components with Eigen values, higher than the unit, which reached an accumulated variance percentage of 55.12 %. The number of species used for animal food was the only one that did not have significant contributions in the factorial stocking rate of the analyzed variables. A total of 179 plant species belonging to 69 botanical families were identified, with higher applications in feeding and human medicine. It is concluded that in the area there is variability in the agro climatic and producer characteristics, and a
great number of species that are used in different uses.
Key words: multivariate analysis, survey, species use