Palms around landslide scars on State Park of Serra do Mar – Núcleo Santa Virginia-SP

Abstract

This work was carried out at the Núcleo Santa Virginia (State Park of Serra do Mar), São Paulo, Brazil (45º 30' W and 23º 17' S) and has the goals of evaluating the response of the palm community in two landslide areas that occurred in the summer of 1996 due to an atmospheric event (Convergence Zone of South Atlantic). One of them is located in preserved forest area and the other in a secondary vegetation area nearby. In order to evaluate the palm community distribution, 100m2 circular plots were allocated in the edges of the scars of the landslides and in the interior of the adjacent vegetation for three altitudes (bottom, middle and top). The palms were classified in three ontogenetic stages (seedlings, juveniles and adults) which represent five species in preserved area (canopy species: Attalea dubia and Euterpe edulis, understorey species: Geonoma gamiova, G. pohliana and G. schottiana) and four species in secondary area (the same species, except G. pohliana). The disturbance caused perturbation in the palm community. The juveniles of species E. edulis and G. schottiana were stimulated by the increase in luminosity provoked by landslides while G. gamiova decreased drastically in these conditions for all developmental stages. The regeneration pattern observed indicates that species from different forest strata can respond in different ways to this type of environmental disturbance.