Edge effects are one of the most important consequences of forest fragmentation. This paper concerns how richness and abundance of pteridophytes vary when forest interiors and edges are compared on the fragmented Una landscape, state of Bahia. All ferns found up to 1 m above the ground were collected on 36 parcels of 120 × 10 m. Six sampling units were established on continuous forest areas (> 900 ha) and six more on forest fragments (< 100 ha). These units were allocated within three sampling blocks of 5 × 5 km over Una landscape. Each area had its parcels positioned at 20 m, 40 m, and further than 100 m from the border line, which was drawn by the cattle pastures areas passing through forest patches on the landscape. There was no significant variation of abundance among studied units, although richness decreases in all blocks, when parcels are closer to the matrix. Species richness is reestablished 20-30 m far from the border, where it has no significant difference to that of forest interior. In addition interior and border of forests are totally different environments, regarding pteridophytes community. Forest interior communities are almost not affected by edge effects. Therefore, border effects have a short penetration on pteridophytes communities, although a large scale raise on the amount of borders might result on the extinction of some local forest species.
Bahia; edge effect; ferns; forest fragmentation
