Avaliação do dossel de diferentes ambientes do Parque Ecológico Quedas do Rio Bonito após evento de fogo

Abstract

Natural environments are becoming more threatened due the increasing of human activities. In Brazil, the Atlantic and Cerrado domains stand out for biodiversity contingent that house and the degree of degradation of their reamaining. One of the major ecological disturbances for the vegetation are fire events, which can go from the lowest parts to the canopy, drastically affecting the forest structure. Canopy is an important layer in forest, directly contacting the atmosphere and subject to its alterations. Climate change can lead to modifications in the upper parts of trees, consequently playing an important hole in the lowest layers of the forest and sometimes determining it's configuration . This study's aim was to identify the key factors determining the canopy's configuration in diferent phytophysiognomys in Parque Ecológico Quedas do Rio Bonito. The park is a transitional area between Cerrado and Mata Atlântica in Lavras municipality. To access this information and verify if there was some alteration in the canopy, hemispheric photos were taken every year in dry and rainy seasons. The results show that the greatest variations are among phytophysiognomys, while there were no expressive variations in the other formations. It can be concluded, then, that fire and climate change had a prevalent effect determining canopy structure in the vegetation accessed by this study.