Journal
PLANT ECOLOGY
Volume 212, Issue 7, Pages 1135-1147Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s11258-010-9893-8
Keywords
Soil-vegetation association; Cerrado soils; Soil water; Brazilian savanna; Sandy soils; Al-tolerant species
Categories
Funding
- Sao Paulo State Foundation of Research Support (FAPESP)
- Brazilian Coordination for Excellence of Graduate Studies (CAPES)
- National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Soil is one of the environmental elements to influence Cerrado vegetation. Aluminum toxicity of Cerrado soils is well known, but the importance of water availability is still to be understood, especially in Cerrado under wetter climates. We studied the association between Cerrado physiognomies (cerrado sensu stricto and cerrado) and morphological, chemical, physical, and physical-hydrical soil attributes at southwestern So Paulo State, Brazil. Characterization of soil morphology, classification and sample collection for particle-size distribution, and chemical and water-retention analyses were carried out in 15 permanent plots, where vegetation was characterized floristically and structurally. Simple correlation and canonical correspondence analyses were performed with soil data. Classification of soils (U.S. Soil Taxonomy) with very low clay contents was not able to separate soils under cerrado-forestry physiognomy-from those under cerrado sensu stricto-savannic physiognomy, even though it tends to distinguish soils under greater biomass from those under lower biomass physiognomies. High soil acidity of all studied soils and increased at the sites with greater contents of organic matter, mainly with the cerrado physiognomy, precluded Al toxicity as a cause of the physiognomic gradient within Cerrado. Clay content, microporosity, and residual and saturation moisture were the most significant soil attributes to correlate directly with the cerrado physiognomy, indicating that water availability is the main factor explaining the physiognomic gradient of Cerrado vegetation in a local scale, where climate and soil fertility do not vary spatially.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available