IS BIOTIC INTEGRITY OF URBAN FORESTS REMANTS RELATED WITH THEIR SIZE AND SHAPE?

ABSTRACT The Brazilian Atlantic Forest (BAF) is one of the biodiversity hotspots, but in the last decades, it has been fragmented due to agricultural and urban-industrial expansion, which has a strong impact on forest fragments. The goal of this study was to analyze the Biotic Integrity Index (BII) in fragments of BAF in two medium-sized cities in Southeastern Brazil and to analyze the relation between BII and landscape metrics (size and shape). The method (BII) has eleven indicators (litter, grass, dead trees, exotic species, vines, gaps, epiphytes, orchids, palms, later species in canopy and...