Plantas características de campos conservados: um parâmetro para subsidiar a conservação do bioma Pampa

Abstract

The South Brazilian Pampa is part of the old-growth grasslands, ancient ecosystems characterized by high richness of herbaceous species and high endemism. In 2002, only about 19% of well-preserved grasslands remained in Rio Grande do Sul (RS), and this type of vegetation has undergone intense conversion since then. This makes conservation of the remnants of primary grasslands essential for maintaining biodiversity and restoring grassland vegetation. To facilitate the identification of primary and well-preserved grassland remnants, we here present a list of grassland species in the Pampa with high affinity to these environments. The resulting list indicates species that occur exclusively in conserved environments or only have few occurrences in degraded environments (one or two occurrences in degraded environments, but with a large number of occurrences for conserved environments). A total of 83% of the grassland species of the Pampa have a high affinity for conserved environments (when including those that had no records in the calculations), thus allowing the recognition of conserved grasslands, helping in the application of conservation policies. At the end of the work, we suggest issues to compose a legal norm for the protection of the primitive remnants of the Pampa biome's grassland vegetation based on the data obtained.