Distribuição de Eriocaulaceae endêmicas do Cerrado em áreas sob efeito do adensamento de plantas lenhosas

Abstract

The effect of Woody Plant Encroachment (WPE) on herbaceous plants still requires further research. Specific studies in the Cerrado indicate that WPE promotes shading and the exclusion of the herbaceous layer. As a compensatory strategy, they suggest the use of fire to maintain open savannas and consequently preserve herbaceous species. However, there is no consensus on the use of fire as a management tool for these ecosystems, especially due to the variation in the proportion of WPE in the Cerrado. In this study, we investigated the impact of WPE on endemic species of the Eriocaulaceae family. For this purpose, we used a map of areas affected by WPE in the Cerrado biome. Subsequently, data on endemic herbaceous species of Brazil were downloaded from GBIF. After data cleaning, 113 species were identified with the minimum acceptable number of points for modeling (10 points), considering a minimum distance of 10 km between occurrences. Species distribution modeling (SDM) was conducted to identify the extent of occurrence (EOO) of each species. The EOO maps of the species were overlaid with WPE maps to identify which areas are being affected. All species had their EOOs affected by WPE. The paired t-test revealed a statistically significant difference between the EOO of herbaceous species and the total area under WPE (p-value of 3.46e-07). Based on this, there is strong evidence that WPE negatively affects the EOO of endemic herbaceous species of the Eriocaulaceae family. We conclude that the increase in WPE significantly reduces the available habitat for the studied species, highlighting the need for management strategies to preserve these species.