Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

International Journal of Geobotanical Research

2012; Linguagem: Inglês

10.5616/ijgr

2253-6515

Salvador Rivas Martínez, Jesús Izco Sevillano, Tomás E. Díaz, Ángel Penas, José Carlos Costa, Javier Amigo, Luis Herrero, Joaquín Giménez de Azcárate, Sara del Río,

Botany, Ecology, and Taxonomy Studies

The term Caatinga, is the expression used by the Tupi-Guarani Brazilian Indians to designate the "white forest" of the Northeastern backlands, due to the appearance of the vegetation in the dry season, when most trees and bushes lose their leaves.This biome brings together various types of vegetation, in an environment where the strong seasonal character of the rains, concentrated in a short period of the year, stands out.It is dominated by a xerophytic, seasonally dry vegetation formation that covers an area of approximately 800,000 km², in the semi-arid region of Northeastern Brazil.The study was conducted in the Conservation Unit Pedra da Andorinha Wildlife Refuge (PAWR), with approximately 600 ha, in the district of Taperuaba, Sobral, Ceará.Its objective was to identify the floristic composition and contribute to the phytosociological analysis and identification of some dominant plant communities in the PAWR.The collecting expeditions and floristic inventories were carried out between 2015 and 2018.The specimens were identified with the help of literature and specialized websites and are deposited in the Prof. Francisco José de Abreu Matos Herbarium (HU-VA).In the vegetation study the classical Braun-Blanquet sigmatist method was applied in the floristic inventories and a classificative analysis (Modified Twinspan) was carried out to separate the plant communities, with identification of diagnostic species (phi coefficient) and Fisher's exact test.In the analysis of the arboreal vegetation and in the absence of a taxonomic typology of vegetation in Ceará, we opted for Andrade-Lima's (1981) classification of 12 types of Caatingas, updated by Prado (2003), in which he integrated a new unit of characterization.The two classifications were based on field observations of most Caatingas, the most striking species in the communities, as well as climatic, edaphic, and geological factors.In the PAWR, six communities were identified: arboreal, scrubland, grassland (heliophytic and umbophilic), vegetation island, and rupicolous.