Oposura (La Madera)

The floras of the tropical vegetation in the Sky Island Sierra la Madera (SMA) near Moctezuma in northeastern Sonora (30°00’N 109°18’W) and the Yécora (YEC) area in the Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO) in eastern Sonora (28°25’N 109°15”W) were compared. The areas are 175 km apart. Tropical vegetation includes foothills thornscrub (FTS) in both areas and tropical deciduous forest (TDF) in the Yécora area. A total of 893 vascular plant taxa are known from these areas with 433 taxa in FTS and 793 in TDF.

Amphibians and reptiles were observed in the Sierra La Madera (59 species), an isolated Sky Island mountain range, and the Sierra Bacadéhuachi (30 species), the westernmost mountain range in the Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO) range in east-central Sonora. These preliminary herpetofaunas were compared with the herpetofauna of the Yécora area in eastern Sonora in the main SMO, where 92 species are known from the Río Yaqui to the Chihuahua border.

Ejido Tonibabi is located 12 kilometers east-northeast of Moctezuma in east-central Sonora, México (29°50’16’’N 109°33’45’’W, 780 m elevation). The vegetation is riparian in the wetlands and foothills thornscrub on slopes. The flora was inventoried on transects in different areas in Ejido Tonibabi. Specimens were collected to identify by comparing with specimens in the University of Arizona and Universidad de Sonora Herbaria and for voucher specimens. A total of 162 species in 125 genera and 47 families were documented in the area.

The Madrean Archipelago Biological Assessment (MABA) “bioblitz” expedition to Sierra de la Madera (Oposura) near Moctezuma, Sonora, Mexico from 29 July–7 August 2010 included a land snail inventory. Five people searched for both macro- and microsnails in five sites in foothills thornscrub, oak woodland, and pine-oak forest (1225–2080 m elevation) and found 347 individuals of 18 species or forms.