SPECIES COMPOSITION OF THE TREE FLORA OF FIVE FOREST FRAGMENTS OF THE ITATIAIA MOUNTAIN RANGE, SOUTH-EAST BRAZIL

ABSTRACT

Five rain forest areas situated in the Itatiaia Mountain Range, states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, SE Brazil, were surveyed in order to produce a checklist of tree species of the regional forests. This checklist resulted from floristic surveys carried out in the five forest fragments, and phytosociological surveys in three of them. An additional checklist produced for a forest area situated on the Itatiaia southern slopes, state of Rio de Janeiro, was extracted from the literature to help assessing the variations in floristic composition. The tree flora sampled in the five studied areas was composed of 450 species, 191 genera and 69 families, many of which are known as characteristic of montane forests (situated above 1,000 m of altitude). The tree flora of the Itatiaia Range forests may be considered as one of the richest in species among areas of montane rain forest in SE Brazil. A cluster analysis identified patterns of floristic similarity among the six forest areas of the Itatiaia Range which were related to the occurrence of periodic floods in an area of alluvial rain forest, to differences in slope aspect (oceanic or continental) among the five areas of montane rain forest, and to the early sucessional stage of one of these. The highest similarity was obtained between the areas of mature montane rain forest of the continental slope, in Aiuruoca and Bocaina de Minas, although the geographical distance between them was much greater than the distances between the latter and the areas of alluvial forest and early sucessional forest.

Key-words: Tree flora; Montane Forest; Atlantic Forest; Itatiaia Mountain Range