DE ANDRADE, ZITA & GISELA CUENCA.
IVIC Centro de Ecología, Apartado 21827, Caracas 1020-A. VENEZUELA.
The tepuis are sandstone table mountains up to more than 2000 m in elevation, which often have spectacular sheer cliffs and flat-topped summits. These table mountains are characteristic of the landscape of Guayana Shield in La Gran Sabana southeastern of Venezuela. These shield consist of Precambrian rocks and originally it formed part of a large craton together with the Brazilian and West African Shield, as part of Gondwana. These table mountains are very isolated and they present a high percentage of endemic plant species.The aim of this work was to evaluate for the first time, the presence of Glomalean species in the four characteristic vegetation zones of one eastern tepuy from La Gran Sabana, the Sororopan tepui. Up to now a total of 15 species of Glomalean have been collected being Glomus, Scutellospora and Acaulospora the more representative genera. Many of these species are new for the science, and some of these have been found also en the lowland next to the tepui. The implication of the presence of similar species in the highland tepui and in the lowland ecosystems from La Gran Sabana are discussed.