Características funcionais de árvores em floresta tropical úmida urbana

Abstract

The relation between basal area, light, and functional characteristics variation is still an unexplored issue, especially in tropical forests with different disturbance regimes, such as urban fragments. The following hypotheses were tested: 1) basal area of arboreal plants and light disponibility is a good predictor of the functional characteristics once it is believed that in forest environments with a lower basal área and much light, functional characteristics values, linked to the fast light resources utilization are found in both leaves (larger leaf area, specific leaf area, chlorophyll concentrations, dry) and stem and root (higher saturated water amount, lower wood density and lower dry matter content); 2) that in environments where there is higher light availability, the standard deviation values of the leaf characteristics will be higher. If this is true, more considerable variation in dry leaf matter, specific leaf area, leaf area and chlorophyll content in these environments are expected. To test these hypotheses, data of 10 functional characteristics (leaf, trunk and root) were collected in 41 species, distributed in four environments: one with larger basal area (A1>AB), two with intermediate basal area (A2ABI and A3ABI) and one with a lower basal area (A4<AB). The functional characteristics values were not influenced by the geographic distance (spatial autocorrelation) neither by the species phylogeny. The prediction that in the areas with the lower basal area, values of characteristics associated with the rapid use of the light resource were confirmed for five characteristics: dry leaf matter (LMDC), stem (SDMC) and root (RDMC), the density of wood stem (WDC) and root (WDR). Contrary to expectations, we did not find significant investment in structural carbon (higher dry matter values of leaf and wood) in environments with the higher basal area. If we consider that in urban fragments the disturbances are frequent, it is possible to suppose that plants with lower values of LDMC, DWC, DWR, SDMC, and RDMC have also "established" in the two areas with a higher basal area. We can conclude that in fragments in tropical urban forest studied, perturbations can change the succession path due to population dynamics, especially in the area with more abundant light availability and lesser basal area (A4<AB). We suggest that this greater light input in the A4<AB environment, due to the greater perturbations, would lead plants with the strategy of using a slow resource, favoring those with fast use of the resource, and as a result, there would be less variability of the leaf characteristics in A4<AB. We conclude that basal area and light are not good predictors of variations of functional characteristics in the urban fragments studied.