Soil-vegetation relationships in structuring cerrado sensu stricto communities in southern Minas Gerais, Brazil

Abstract

The cerrados of southern Minas Gerais are still poorly studied. The objective of this work was to understand the role of soils in structuring two tree communities of cerrado in the municipality of Guapé. For that 14 plots of 50 × 30 m were installed in two cerrado fragments being 8 over Litholic Neosol and 6 over Red Argisol. In these plots, all tree individuals with circumference at 30 cm from the ground (C30) ≥ 15.7 cm (5 cm diameter) were measured and soil samples from each plot were taken for chemical and textural analysis. In total we sampled 1561 individuals and total species richness was 83 species belonging to 65 genera of 37 families. The area on Neossol was classified as rupestral cerrado sensu stricto and Caryocar brasiliense was the most important species in VI in the physiognomy. The cerrado on Argisol was categorized as typical cerrado sensu stricto and Dalbergia miscolobium was the largest species in VI to this vegetation type. The CCA presented a significant eigenvalue to the first axis of 0.563 indicating a short gradient with rapid replacement of species. There was an association at the contents of P and sand in the rupestral cerrado and K and clay in the typical cerrado. Finally, the distribution of species in the gradient was different between the substrates indicating species preference for specific sites. The conservation of the cerrados of southern Minas Gerais should therefore consider not just the floristic diversity but their multiple landforms and associated ecotones formations.

Key words: floristics; phytogeography; hotspot; savannah