Title
Emerging hotspots of tree richness in Brazil
Date Issued
01 January 2020
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Castuera-Oliveira L.
de Oliveira-Filho A.T.
Eisenlohr P.V.
Publisher(s)
Sociedade Botanica do Brasil
Abstract
We present a summary of floristic variation and distribution of richness of tree and tree-like taxa (i.e., freestanding plants that reach at least 3m in height) in Brazil. We investigated composition patterns throughout phytogeographic domains and vegetation types based on 698,490 occurrence records obtained from the NeoTropTree (NTT) database, and used rarefaction and extrapolation methods to compare species richness. We delimited areas of high taxa richness in Brazil by applying the Geographic Interpolation of Endemism method. There are 9,108 tree species catalogued in NTT for Brazil, but our extrapolations indicate that the total could reach 9,525 species. Predominantly forested domains showed the greatest richness of taxa with the Amazon domain having the highest number of exclusive taxa. Fabaceae and Myrtaceae were the most represented families. The richest vegetation types were Rain Evergreen Forest and Seasonally Semideciduous Forest. Distribution patterns of richness in Brazil and among its domains were found to be controlled by different spatial scales for each taxon. Transition zones had high species richness. The patterns found here can help to identify priority areas for biodiversity conservation in Brazil.
Start page
117
End page
134
Volume
34
Issue
1
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Forestal Ecología Ciencias de las plantas, Botánica
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85082564051
Source
Acta Botanica Brasilica
ISSN of the container
01023306
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus