Abstract
The natural vegetation of Southern Brazil's coastal region includes grasslands formations that are poorly considered in conservation policy, due to the lack of knowledge about these systems. This study reports results from a regional-scale survey of coastal grasslands vegetation along a 536 km gradient on southern Brazil. We sampled 16 sites along the coastal plain with 15 plots (1 m²) per site. All sites were grazed by cattle. We estimated plant species cover, vegetation height, percentage of bare soil, litter and manure, and classified species according to their growth forms. We found 221 species, 14 of them exotic and two threatened. The prostate grasses: Axonopus aff.affinis, Paspalum notatum and P. pumilumwere among the most important species. Prostrate graminoids species represented the most important vegetation cover, followed by cespitose grasses. Vegetation height, bare soil, litter and manure were similar among all areas, highlighting the homogeneity of sampling sites due to similar management. In comparison to other grasslands formations in Southern Brazil, the coastal grasslands presented rather low species richness. The presence of high values for bare soil at all sampling sites indicates the need to discuss management practices in the region, especially with regard to the intensity of livestock grazing.
Highlights
Coastal landscapes currently are among the most degraded environments in the world (UNEP 2006)
A total of 221 taxa of vascular plants were identified to the species level, four individuals could only be identified to the genus or family level
A complete list of species occurrence with indication of the five most important species, growth forms and endangerment status is presented in the supplementary material (Table SI, available only in the online version)
Summary
Coastal landscapes currently are among the most degraded environments in the world (UNEP 2006) This degradation is related to the fact that most of the population worldwide lives close to the coastline and explores natural resources from coastal environments. This is true for Brazil, where about 74 million people, or 40% of the population, live in coastal zones The Brazilian shoreline extends 7500 km in length and encompasses very distinct environments. Throughout this region, conservation problems have been pointed out for a large diversity of ecosystems, such as saltmarshes (Isacch et al 2006), foredunes (Seeliger 2003), wetlands (Diegues 1999) and Atlantic forest (Rigueira et al 2013). In the coastal plain of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in the South of Brazil, about 5700 km of grasslands remain, distributed in a strip of 622 km in length and 80
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