A year in a Cerrado wet grassland: a non-seasonal island in a seasonal savanna environment/Um ano em um campo umido no Cerrado: uma ilha nao-estacional em um ambiente de savana estacional

• Published in: Brazilian journal of biology Vol. 68; no. 3; pp. 495 - 501
• Main Authors: Cianciaruso, M.V, Batalha, M.A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association of the Brazilian Journal of Biology 01.08.2008; Instituto Internacional de Ecologia
• Subjects: alagamento; diversidade; diversity; Emas National Park; estacionalidade; Parque Nacional das Emas; savana; savanna; seasonality; waterlogging
• ISSN: 1519-6984; 1678-4375
• DOI: 10.1590/S1519-69842008000300005

In some Cerrado regions where the water table is superficial and soils are hydromorphic, we may find wet grasslands. We studied temporal changes in some community descriptors, such as species density, plant density, basal area, and cylindrical volume in a Cerrado wet grassland in four different seasons of the year. We also compared the species richness and composition of the wet grassland with a hyperseasonal cerrado, and a seasonal cerrado. We found significant differences among the seasons only for species density. Chao-Sorensen similarity values varied from 0.86 to 0.99 and, in the wet grassland, were not different among the seasons. On the contrary, similarity values between the wet grassland and hyperseasonal and seasonal cerrados were low. Species richness was lower in the wet grassland and higher in the seasonal cerrado. As long as savannas are highly dynamic on all temporal and spatial scales, the wet grassland stability, at least in a short-term view, introduces an important heterogeneity in regional scale. Wet grasslands are also important in the Cerrado domain to increase β-diversity, since they are floristically dissimilar with cerrado vegetation.