Floristic survey of vascular plants of a poorly known area in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (Flona do Rio Preto, Espírito Santo)

Abstract

The Atlantic Forest is one of the most threatened biomes in the world. Despite that, this biome still includes many areas that are poorly known floristically, including several protected areas, such as the "Floresta Nacional do Rio Preto" ("Flona do Rio Preto"), located in the Brazilian State of Espírito Santo. This study used a published vascular plant species list for this protected area from the "Catálogo de Plantas das Unidades de Conservação do Brasil" as the basis to synthesise the species richness, endemism, conservation and new species occurrences found in the "Flona do Rio Preto". The published list of vascular plants was based on field expeditions conducted between 2018 and 2020 and data obtained from herbarium collections available in online databases. Overall, 722 species were documented for the "Flona do Rio Preto", 711 of which are native to Brazil and 349 are endemic to the Atlantic Forest. In addition, 60 species are geographically disjunct between the Atlantic and the Amazon Forests. Most of the documented species are woody and more than 50% of these are trees. Twenty-three species are threatened (CR, EN and VU), while five are Data Deficient (DD). Thirty-two species are new records for the State of Espírito Santo. Our results expand the knowledge of the flora of the Atlantic Forest and provide support for the development of new conservation policies for this protected area.

A new species of Parianella (Poaceae, Bambusoideae, Olyreae) marks the southernmost distribution of the genus in Brazil

“…Habitat and ecology. Both localities lie in the Krenák-Waitaká Forests (KWF) (Saiter et al 2016;Alves-Araújo et al 2022), one of the three subregions in the central centre of endemism of the Atlantic Forest (Thomas et al 1998;Murray-Smith et al 2009). The vegetation of this region is characterized as a semi-deciduous seasonal submontane forest, due to climatic conditions, altitudinal ranges, and soil types (Assis et al 2007).…”

“…According to the latter authors, these subregions are: Bahia Interior Forests (moist and dry forests of north-eastern Minas Gerais and inland Bahia), Bahia Coastal Forests (BCF) (wet forests north of 18-19°S), and Krenák-Waitaká Forests (KWF) (moist forests south of 18-19°S, in Espírito Santo state). The entire territory of the state of Espírito Santo lies in the central region of the Atlantic Forest, split into the BCF and KWF subregions (Saiter et al 2016;Alves-Araújo et al 2022). The central region of the Atlantic Forest harbours high biodiversity and incidence of endemic and threatened species (Thomas et al 1998;Martini et al 2007;Ostroski et al 2018), including bamboos (Soderstrom et al 1988;Clark 1990;Oliveira et al 2011;Ferreira et al 2020a).…”

“…Although the species occurs in a Conservation Unit (Duas Bocas Biological Reserve, Espírito Santo, Brazil), we suggest this category based on its very restricted distribution. Furthermore, the Atlantic Forest is one of the most endangered biodiversity hotspots(Ribeiro et al 2009;Rezende et al 2018), especially in Espírito Santo state, where urbanization and industrial and agricultural expansion have led to a great loss and fragmentation of the vegetation(Pereira 2007;Alves-Araújo et al 2022). Parianella capixaba overlaps morphologically with both P. carvalhoi and P. lanceolata in some characters (Table…”