Places

Ongoing research is confined to mycorrhizas of terrestrial and epiphytic orchids in the tropical mountain rain forest of South Ecuador.

Geographic situation of the research area in Southern Ecuador [Courtesy of FOR 402].

View to Loja capital of the province and place of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja (UTPL). Photo: I. Kottke.

Samples are collected in the forest area of the Estación Scientífica San Francisco (ECSF) situated between Loja and Zamora on the eastern slope of the Cordillera del Consuelo. The reserve is part of the UNESCO Bioreserve “Podocarpus-El Condor” since September 2007.

Research Station "Estación Scientífica San Francisco" above the Rio San Francisco valley. Photo: I. Kottke.

The results were obtained by the mycorrhiza research group guided by Ingrid Kottke from 1978 until 2007 at the Institute of Systematic Botany, Mycology and Botanical Garden, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany.

View on the Botanical Garden and the city of Tübingen. Photo: I. Kottke.