Urbanization alters the composition, but not the diversity and structure, of Neotropical savanna woody plant communities
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Urbanization alters the composition, but not the diversity and structure, of Neotropical savanna woody plant communities Érica Vanessa Durães Freitas & Maria das Dores Magalhães Veloso & Walter Santos de Araújo
Received: 13 August 2019 / Revised: 31 March 2020 / Accepted: 18 April 2020 # Institute of Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences 2020
Abstract Urbanization is one of the main drivers of environmental change and can result in drastic changes to the biodiversity and composition of plant communities. The objective of the present work was to investigate whether the structure, diversity and composition of Neotropical savanna woody plant communities differ among fragments immersed in urban, peri-urban and rural environments. The study was carried out in nine Neotropical savannas with distinct levels of urbanization in the municipality of Montes Claros, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. A total of 469 woody individuals belonging to 76 species and 30 families of plants were sampled. The most specious families were the Fabaceae with seventeen species and the Vochysiaceae with eight. The most abundant species were Myracrodruon urundeuva in urban areas, Byrsonima pachyphyla in peri-urban areas and Hymenaea stigonocarpa in rural areas. The diversity (species richness, estimated species richness and Simpson diversity index) and structure (abundance, cover and height) of the plant communities under study did not vary in response to urbanization, although species composition experienced notable changes. The urban plant communities were very disÉ. V. D. Freitas Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade e Uso dos Recursos Naturais, Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros, Montes Claros, MG, Brazil M. das Dores Magalhães Veloso : W. S. de Araújo (*) Departamento de Biologia Geral, Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde, Universidade Estadual de Montes Claros, Montes Claros, MG, Brazil e-mail: [email protected]
tinct from the rural plant communities. Furthermore, the dominant species were very different among the urban, peri-urban and rural areas. These findings demonstrate that urbanization affects Neotropical savanna species that are susceptible to anthropization. Furthermore, among the anthropogenic pressures related to urbanization, fragmentation and isolation seem to be the most influential determinants of the composition of Neotropical savanna communities. Keywords Cerrado sensu stricto . community structure . fragmentation . habitat modification . species composition . urban gradient
Introduction The conversion of natural habitats into humandominated landscapes is the major cause of biodiversity loss worldwide (Foley et al. 2005; Françoso et al. 2015), because it reduces the complexity of natural habitats with harsh consequences for plant species (Albouy et al. 2014; Staniczenko et al. 2017). Land use intensification affects not only plant species richness but also the composition of plant communities (Walker et al. 2009), because of the loss of native species and increases in alien plants (McKinney 2006; Didham et al. 2007
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