Biodiversity and Conservation (2006) 15:1509–1527 Ó Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s10531-005-2632-0 -1 Species Composition, diversity and local uses of tropical dry deciduous and gallery forests in Nicaragua BENIGNO GONZA´LEZ-RIVAS1, MULUALEM TIGABU2,*, KARIN GERHARDT3, GUILLERMO CASTRO-MARI´N1 and PER CHRISTER ODE´N2 1Facultad de Recursos Naturales y del Ambiente, Universidad Nacional Agraria Apartado Postal 453, Managua, Nicaragua; 2Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Tropical Silviculture and Seed Laboratory, Faculty of Forest Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-901 83 Umea˚, Sweden; 3Department of Plant Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Villava¨gen 14, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden; *Author for correspondence (e-mail:
[email protected],
[email protected]; phone: +46-90-786-83-19; fax: +46-90- 786-58-96) Received 6 December 2004; accepted in revised form 15 August 2005 Key words: Biodiversity, Central America, Endangered species, Floristic composition Abstract. The floristic composition and diversity of tropical dry deciduous and gallery forests were studied in Chacocente Wildlife Refuge, located on the Pacific coast in Nicaragua during 1994 and 2000. Density, dominance and frequency as well as species and family important values were computed to characterize the floristic composition. A variety of diversity measures were also calculated to examine heterogeneity in each forest community. A total of 29 families, 49 genera and 59 species were represented in 2 ha dry deciduous forest. In the gallery forest, the number of families, genera and species recorded in 2000 inventory was 33, 48 and 58, respectively and slightly higher than the 1994 inventory.