ABSTRACT
Yule Roberta Ferreira-Nunes, Giovana Rodrigues da Luz, Saimo Rebleth de Souza, Diellen Librelon da Silva, Maria das Dores Magalhães-Veloso, Mário Marcos do Espírito-Santo, and Rubens Manoel dos Santos
Tropical dry forests (TDFs) in Brazil occur predominantly as forest disjunctions forming natural “islands” amidst all the large Brazilian biomes (Scariot and Sevilha 2005; Espírito-Santo et al. 2009). In these formations, the period of favorable growth is usually restricted to a short rainy season, when seed germination and seedling establishment is expected (Khurana and Singh
CONTENTS
18.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 325 18.2 Methods ....................................................................................................... 327
18.2.1 Vegetation Sampling ..................................................................... 327 18.2.2 Ecological Characterization of Plant Species ............................. 328 18.2.3 Soil Sampling .................................................................................. 328 18.2.4 Data Analyses ................................................................................. 329
18.3 Results .........................................................................................................330 18.3.1 Floristic Composition and Structure ...........................................330 18.3.2 Guild Composition ........................................................................334 18.3.3 Interactions between Guilds ........................................................ 337 18.3.4 Soil-Vegetation Interactions ......................................................... 337
18.4 Discussion ................................................................................................... 341 18.5 Conclusion ..................................................................................................345 Appendix ..............................................................................................................346
