Floristics, diversity, and horizontal and vertical structure of an open shruby vegetation in a sandy coastal plain at Espírito Santo, Southeastern Brasil

Abstract

The open shrublands on Brazilian sand banks in Brazil are generally of a mosaic appearance due to the distribution of vegetation in clumps that produce discontinuities in the landscape, concerning the vegetation coverage, physiognomy, and / or floristic composition. In Espírito Santo, the open vegetation areas have been analyzed according to different methodologies, including the line intercept, the needle method, and plots. The plot method has been most frequently used in the description of forests, or even in the herbaceous vegetation among the scrubs. This study aimed to raise floristic and structural evidences from the open shrub land at the Environmental Protection area of Setiba – APA Setiba, an adjacent area to State Park Paulo César Vinha – PEPCV – that justify the expansion of the limits of the PEPCV. The plant community of analyzed in this study is characterized by an open scrub physiognomy, flooded and not flooded. We sampled 4224 individuals of 65 species, belonging to 56 genera and 33 families. Families with higher values of VI were Cactaceae (25.96%), Bromeliaceae (18.78%), and Burseraceae (8.03%), comprising 52% of the total VI. Pilosocereus arrabidae. showed higher values for almost all structural parameters calculated only exception being Do.Ri which was led by Protium icicariba. The indices of structural diversity and evenness were very similar to the ones found for forests, and are higher that the values usually reported to the scrubs. The distribution of individuals in height classes showed a stratification defined by shrubby and herbaceous components. The high biological diversity and evenness indexes found (3,298 nats/ind; 0,79), as well as the presence of extinction endangered species in floristic checklist, and the proximity of urban pressure support the inclusion of this area in the conservation limits of PEPCV.