Desierto de Los Leones

alvarezyatesabadl22 Post 1: Observations
April 4, 2022

I visited Desierto de Los Leones National Park on Wednesday, March 23th, from 11:20 a.m. to 2:20 p.m. The park is located southwest of Mexico City and has an area of 1,867 Ha. It’s considered the oldest protected land in Mexico; it was declared a forest reserve in 1876 due to its many freshwater springs that supply Mexico City.

 

Its name means desert of the lions, although it’s neither a desert nor has lions. The park is a temperate forest because of its high altitude, between 2,600 and 3,790 meters above sea level. The forest is mainly composed of pine, oyamel fir, and oak trees. It houses many amphibians and bird species and some mammals, reptiles, and insects. Many species are endemic to the area (Figure 1).

 

For my first visit, I did a 10 km recognizance hike to the park’s center and back to the north entrance. I chose this walk because I was interested in studying the area around the freshwater springs for my project. However, the ones I found (~6) were covered up, presumably for water extraction (Figure 2). It was a sunny day with an average temperature of 25 °C (low 23 °C and max 30 °C), and it’s currently dry season.

 

During my walk, I pondered many questions focusing mainly on the vegetation:

  1. There are many hills in the park, and it was interesting to see how the vegetation changed with altitude. There were fewer trees at the top, and the higher I got, the more I kept seeing a particular flower, known as the mountain rose (Figure 3), so I wondered if its due to elevation or increased sunlight (or something else). 
  2. Another thing that caught my eye was some red flowers (I’ve yet to identify), and they appear to come in two sizes. One was twice as large but otherwise seemed proportionate (Figure 4). Could nutrients/light be causing this, or is there another reason for this size difference?
  3. In addition, I have a lot of interest in fungi and found many dead trees with what appears to be two types of fungus (or might be one in different stages). What is the species composition of macrofungi growing on dead trees? How does it change depending on tree species and other factors? (Figure 5)
Figure 1: Some of the animals found in the park. Clockwise starting at the left top corner, are amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles. Pictures were taken from signs at the park’s northern entrance.
Figure 2: Manantial Otates, one of the six water springs I found covered in the park.
Figure 3: Side and top view of the mountain rose.
Figure 4: Both sizes of the red flowers. Both flowers are actually side by side, although the blur of the image makes one appear in front of the other.
Figure 5: Fungi found growing on a fallen tree.

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