J Plant Ecol ›› 2020, Vol. 13 ›› Issue (3): 361-368 .DOI: 10.1093/jpe/rtaa024

• Research Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Protection status as determinant of carbon stock drivers in Cerrado sensu stricto

Kelly Marianne Guimarães Pereira1, *,†, Natielle Gomes Cordeiro2,†, Marcela de Castro Nunes Santos Terra2, Marcela Venelli Pyles1, Christian Dias Cabacinha3, José Márcio de Mello2 and Eduardo van den Berg2   

  1. 1 Department of Biology, Federal University of Lavras, Campus Universitário, CEP 37200-000, Lavras, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, 2 Department of Forest Sciences, Federal University of Lavras, Campus Universitário, CEP 37200-000, Lavras, Minas Gerais state, Brazil, 3 Department of Forest Sciences, Institute of Agrarian Sciences, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Campus Regional de Montes Claros, CEP 39.404-547, Montes Claros, Minas Gerais state, Brazil

    *Corresponding author. E-mail: kellyguimaraes10@gmail.com
    These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • Received:2019-09-28 Revised:2020-04-18 Accepted:2020-05-19 Online:2020-05-25 Published:2020-06-01

Abstract:

Aims

Natural vegetation plays an important role in global carbon cycling and storage. Thus, the Cerrado (Brazilian savannah) is considered a carbon sink because of its intrinsic characteristics. Our aim was to evaluate how the aboveground biomass and biodiversity relationship change between three Cerrado remnants with different protection status: a ‘control area’ (Legal Reserve area), a protected area (PA) and a non-protected area (Non-PA).

Methods

All three studied fragments are situated in northern Minas Gerais state, Brazil. We estimated the aboveground carbon stocks based on the forest inventory. We also measured three dimensions of biodiversity metrics for each plot: functional trait dominance, taxonomic diversity and functional diversity. The following functional traits were evaluated for the species: wood density, maximum diameter and seed size. We carried out generalized linear models seeking to evaluate how carbon stocks, community-weighted mean (CWM) trait values, species richness and diversity, and functional diversity indices differ among the remnants.

Important Findings

The Cerrado areas without protection status had lower carbon stocks, species richness, species diversity, functional richness and functional dispersion, whereas both PA and Non-PA had lower CWM maximum diameter and seed size compared with the Legal Reserve control area. Generalized linear models showed that carbon stocks, species and functional richness metrics were correlated within and across sites, and thus, species richness could serve as a good proxy for functional richness and carbon stocks. The carbon stocks were positively driven by species richness and CWM maximum diameter, while they were negatively driven by functional dispersion. Functional richness, species diversity and CWM seed size appeared in the set of best models, but with no significant direct effect on carbon stocks. Thus, we concluded that absence of protection in the Cerrado areas decreases both species richness and carbon stocks.

Key words: functional traits, biodiversity, biomass storage, Brazilian Savanna, human impacts

摘要:

天然植被在全球碳循环和碳储存中扮演着重要角色。巴西大草原塞拉多保护区(Cerrado)因自身固有特性被认为是一个碳汇。本研究的目的是评估具有不同保护状况的三个地区,控制区(法定保护区)、保护区(PA)和非保护区(Non-PA)地上生物量与生物多样性关系的变化。这三个被研究的地区都位于巴西米纳斯吉拉斯州(Minas Gerais)北部。根据森林清查资料,该研究对地上碳储量进行了估算,并测量了每个地区生物多样性指标的三个维度:功能性状优势度、分类学多样性和功能多样性。对物种的以下功能性状进行了评价:木材密度、最大直径和种子大小。通过建立广义线性模型,评估了碳储量、群落加权平均值、物种丰富度和多样性以及功能多样性指数在不同地区间的差异。 研究结果表明,未受保护的地区碳储量、物种丰富度、物种多样性、功能丰富度和功能分散度均较低,而保护区和非保护区群落加权平均值最大直径和种子大小均低于法定保护区。广义线性模型结果表明,碳储量与物种和功能丰富度指数在同一地区内和不同地区间存在相关性,因此,物种丰富度可以作为功能丰富度和碳储量的替代指标。物种丰富度和群落加权平均值最大直径对碳储量有正向影响,功能分散度对碳储量有负向影响。功能丰富度、物种多样性和群落加权平均值种子大小出现在最佳模型中,但对碳储量没有显著的直接影响。因此,我们的结论是,在缺乏保护的巴西塞拉多地区会降低物种丰富度和碳储量。

关键词: 功能性状, 生物多样性, 生物量储存, 巴西大草原, 人类影响