The Landscape Ecology has become important for decisions on land use. This work presents the spatial configuration of the Pitangui river landscape in the Devonian Cuesta. The Landscape Units (LU) were classified as anthropogenic matrix, forest and grasslands patches. In a total of 8,015 ha, they were identified 103 forest fragments (11.4% of the area) and 82 grasslands fragments (49,4%), being 39.2% of anthropogenic areas. The grasslands patches are bigger and more regular shaped whereas the forest one. The present landscape has resulted not only of the human interference, but mainly of the landscape evolution under the Late Quaternary climatic flutuations. The natural areas of this portion of the Pitangui watershed showed favorable spatial conditions with regarding to the biodiversity maintenance. There are extensive grasslands fragments in a predominant natural landscape. There are differences in the land use pattern: the northern portion appears more disturbed than the southern portion with natural areas best preserved.
Fragmentation; Landscape Ecology; Grasslands
