Litter on spontaneous forest restoration can influence water balance and its ecological processes. In this study, we evaluated the stock of accumulated litter and its ex situ water retention by the Blow method in similar locations, at 4 levels of forest restoration spontaneously developed from the species Clidemia urceolata DC. in the following environments: abandoned pasture (S1), farmyard (S2), brushwood (S3), and forest fragment (S4). A sampler (0.25 × 0.25 × 0.05 m) was randomly prepared in 12 samples per treatment during the dry period. The largest stock of accumulated litter was observed in S4 (5.15 Mg ha-1) and the greatest water retention levels were found in S2 (343.87%) and S3 (339,94%), demonstrating that biomass and species diversity influence production but do not affect the responses of litter water, whose greater retention levels are related to the presence of deciduous material from facilitative species in the poorly evolved phases and to lower retention levels in the more advanced stages (30 years of restoration), increasing soil moisture contents.
water balance; ecosystem services; facilitation