No abstract

O objetivo do estudo foi avaliar a composição florística e estrutural em um trecho de floresta secundária, no município de Dona Francisca - RS. Foram instaladas 50 parcelas permanentes de dimensão 10 x 20 m, de modo sistemático, distanciadas 10 m entre si e 40 m entre faixas, totalizando 1 ha. Foram amostrados todos os indivíduos que apresentassem CAP ≥ 15,7 cm e calculado os estimadores fitossociológicos. Foi realizada a curva de acumulação de espécie para verificar a suficiência amostral. Para o cálculo de diversidade e dominância, utilizou-se o Índice de Shannon (H’) e Equabilidade de Pielou (J’). Para a riqueza potencial utilizaram-se os estimadores não paramétricos Jackknife. Avaliou-se a composição florística e estrutural por meio da Análise de Correspondência Distendida (DCA). Verificou-se, também, a distribuição diamétrica e hipsométrica da comunidade arbórea, e para as espécies, com valor de importância acima de 5 %, a distribuição em classes de DAP. As análises estatísticas foram realizadas no programa R. Foram identificadas 65 espécies arbóreas e arbustivas com 2.045 indivíduos distribuídas em 31 famílias botânicas. As espécies com valor de importância acima de 5% foram Casearia sylvestris (14,04%), Nectandra lanceolata (12,86 %), Cupania vernalis (9,57 %), Guarea macrophylla (7,29 %) e Ocotea puberula (5,07 %). Os valores para a diversidade e dominância foram, respectivamente, de 2,91 nats.ind-1 e 0,69, indicando que a área possui baixa diversidade e dominância de poucas espécies. Pela DCA é possível verificar que as parcelas estão distribuídas homogeneamente no trecho florestal. A distribuição diamétrica representou o esperado para a comunidade arbórea com tendência ao J-invertido e a maioria das árvores apresentou altura concentrada no estrato intermediário da floresta. Das cinco espécies analisadas, apenas Nectandra lanceolata e Ocotea puberula não apresentaram curva exponencial negativa. Foi possível observar que há um predomínio de indivíduos nas primeiras classes de DAP e altura, o que caracteriza a resiliência da área após distúrbio. Ainda, indica as flutuações e estabilidade das espécies, na sucessão ecológica, de uma floresta em estágio intermediário de regeneração.

Seed rainfall may be one of the mechanisms most impacted by livestock production in forest remnants. The trampling and cattle grazing alter dynamics, structure and floristic composition of the forest. The present work characterized the seed rainin forest remnants and the possible impacts of the presence and the management regime with different cattle stocks in the Pampa biome, southern region of Brazil. We compared three areas in Seasonal Forest remnants with a management history of 43 years: cattle exclusion area (A1); area with a cattle stock of 0.5 ua ha-1 (A2); and area with cattle stock of 1.0 ua ha-1 (A3). The seed rain was collected quarterly in 16 collectors (1 × 1 m²) per area for 24 months. The seeds were counted and identified according to external morphological characteristics, habit and dispersion syndrome. Shannon diversity index, submitted to the Hutcheson test, Pielou evenness, expected diversity and floristic similarity were determined. The results indicated that the impacts caused by livestock to seed rain were more significant in A3 where a quantitative reduction in the number of seeds was observed, probably due to the low number of plant individuals that make up the community.

This study evaluated seed rain in different forest formation soil uses in the Serra do Sudeste region, Pampa biome. Four area were selected: active restoration (Area 1), passive restoration (Area 2), eucalyptus commercial plantation (Area 3) and native forest (Area 4). Ten permanent collectors of 1 m² each were installed in each area, being suspended 1 meter above the soil surface. Collections were made monthly for twelve months in 2018. The analyzed variables were: the number of morphospecies, number of individuals, the indices of Margalef richness, Pielou evenness, Shannon diversity, Jaccard floristic similiarity, and possible correlations by detrended correspondence analysis (DCA). Total number of seeds sampled during the period was 239,988, distributed across 116 morphospecies. The area under active restoration (Area 1) did not differ statistically by the Kruskall-Wallis test (p < 0.05) of the native forest (Area 4) for the number of seeds. Area 1 presented a higher number of morphospecies and greater diversity of species, followed by Area 4. Seed rain can be a promising ecological indicator for the conditions of the present study.

Through the variation of the functional attributes, it is possible to verify the functioning of an ecosystem, both by the species organization as by their responses to the environmental variations. In this sense, the objective of this study was to analyze the ecological strategies of the main tree species by analyzing their functional attributes. PCoA was used to verify which species are acquisitive and conservative; clustering was used to verify the functional attributes by groups; the Pearson’s correlation between the functional attributes and a CWM-RDA analysis was used to verify the environmental variables. Most species were classified as light-demanding climax and having zoochoric dispersion. The species presented phenotypic plasticity as an important ecological strategy in the composition of their functional attributes, especially when related to leaf area and specific leaf area. Most of the species belonged to the acquisitive group. The acquisitive and conservative groups indicate the resilience potential of the tree community and the change processes in ecological succession. There was a strong negative correlation between the leaf attributes, and a positive one with diameter and height, both correlations related to plant growth and development. Of the environmental variables only pH, K, and average elevation, were related to the attributes, indicating that environmental conditions are important for the establishment of the sampled species. Also, it was found that the species composition is linked to several conditions of ecological strategies associated with changes in the environment.