Spatialization of Tree Species Diversity in the State of Minas Gerais

Abstract

The state of Minas Gerais has a high ecological relevance mainly due to its forest species diversity. Understanding the spatialization of that diversity is of importance to develop environmental public policies. The hypothesis of this study is that the tree species diversity from different forest types, in the state of Minas Gerais, presents distribution with spatial dependence. Thus, the objective of this work was to prove that spatial dependence and to relate it between the forest types. Data from the project called "Forest Inventory of Minas Gerais" were used to calculate indices of Shannon, Simpson and Pielou. We used geostatistical and kriging tools to create spatial maps. As results, the mappings indicated that the state presents well-defined gradients of diversity and richness of forest species, increasing in North-South and from West-East directions. The spatial dependence and the spatialization of the tree species diversity show that the geostatistical modeling is a tool that supports the forest resource management. The maps of diversity can be used as indicators of potential areas for creating Conservation Units, establishing ecological corridors, besides supporting environmental policy development.

Mapping wood volume in seasonally dry vegetation of Caatinga in Bahia State, Brazil

“…Another relevant point is that the shape and size of the sample configuration can affect the theoretical estimators and the description of the spatial dependence structure and the spatial estimates of unmeasured values (Kestring et al, 2015). Therefore, one of the main limitations of using geostatistical techniques is the number of samples needed to form the ideal sampling grid, which spatially represents the distribution of the variable under study (Araújo et al, 2019).…”