Environmental representativeness and forest fragmentation in areas dominated by eucalyptus plantations: a proposal for the spatial arrangement of forest fragments / Representatividade ambiental e fragmentação florestal em áreas dominadas por plantios homogêneos: uma proposta para o arranjo espacial de fragmentos florestais

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

This work presents a landscape study in areas dominated by eucalyptus plantations and native forest. The objectives were to evaluate the spatial configuration and the physiographic and pedologic heterogeneity of native forest fragments, aiming to establish scenarios of arrangement of these fragments that maximize the environmental representativeness of the landscape. Hence, the study was designed to preserve the maximum diversity of fauna and flora, given the scarcity of low-cost and easy-handling scientific methodologies to allocate reserves which effectively represents all environmental diversity. The hypotheses tested were: (i) fragments of native forest are not randomly distributed and may not be representative of all landscape diversity; (ii) the judicious allocation of reserves can improve the environmental representativeness. The Chi-Square test returned significant values for all the soil and physiographic characteristics analyzed in all projects at 5% of probability level, implying that the distribution of the native forest areas is not random, depending on physiography and soil characteristics. In general, native forests are mainly associated with lower areas, areas of steep slopes, fluvial terraces and plains, concave slopes and slopes oriented to the South and Southeast, shallow Haplic or Fluvic Cambisols and Lithic Neosols. Fragments were observed to be elongated, following drainage lines, allowing in some cases connectivity between other fragments. As a general rule, the major fragments were those that possess more irregular shapes, due to drainage orientation. The program allowed the allocation or withdrawal of reserves in the borders with native forest, as well as the allocation of them anywhere in the eucalyptus plantation area, aiming to decrease the discrepancy between the expected and observed native forest in the soil and physiographic characteristics analyzed and thence optimizing the environmental representativeness. The scenarios without border restriction caused the occurence of elongated fragments with lower core areas. The proposed scenarios help the decision making process related to the definition of priority areas to conservation purposes in the real context of native forest fragments distribution, representing all environmental representativeness.

ASSUNTO(S)

ciencia do solo geoprocessing ecologia de paisagens geoprocessamento landscape ecology mata atlântica native forest fragments mata atlântica

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

Documentos Relacionados