Floristic composition of an urban coastal forest fragment at the State University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil

Raianna Oliveira Araujo,Valéria Da Silva Sampaio,Oriel Herrera Bonilla,Eliseu Marlônio Pereira De Lucena,Maria Isabela Cavalcante Vieira

doi:10.1590/2175-7860202172085

Raianna Oliveira Araujo, Valéria Da Silva Sampaio + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/2175-7860202172085

Copy DOI

Journal: Rodriguésia	Publication Date: Jan 1, 2021
License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universidade Estadual do Ceará

Abstract

Abstract The urban areas have suffered with the loss in their biodiversity along the years due to the decrease of green areas by civil construction or by the urban population growth. Therefore, this work aimed at registering the angiosperms diversity in an urban forest fragment at the Itaperi Campus of the State University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil. The sampling was carried out from May/2018 to April /2019 through walks during the rainy and dry seasons. 160 species distributed in 128 genera and 49 families were registered. Fabaceae (27 spp.), Asteraceae (13 spp.), Convolvulaceae and Malvaceae (11 spp. each), Rubiaceae e Poaceae (9 spp. each), and Euphorbiaceae (8 spp.) were the richest families, accounting for 55% of the sampled flora. The herbaceous plants (36.65%) were the most represented habit after which the sub-shrubs and shrubs (17,50% each), arboreal (16,25%) and climbing plants (13.12%) were classified. Among the total species 94.37% are natives, 15,62% are endemic to Brazil and 5,62% are exotic. Of the identified species, 10 spp. are in the Red List of the Flora Conservation National Center and 30 spp. are in the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It can be concluded that the studied fragment has an important richness of plant species in an urban area, therefore it is necessary to create a Conservation Unity and a management plan in order to guarantee the conservation of the area.

Highlights

Great areas of the Earth surface are being altered by human activities (Pardini et al 2017)
All the vegetal formations are altered by anthropic actions in a bigger or smaller degree especially due to agricultural and cattle raising activities and the industrialization and urbanization impacts, leaving only a few patches where the original vegetation is present (Silva 2019)
Study area The floristic survey was made in an urban fragment of coastal forest located inside the Itaperi Campus of the State University of Ceará (UECE)

Summary

Introduction

Great areas of the Earth surface are being altered by human activities (Pardini et al 2017). All the vegetal formations are altered by anthropic actions in a bigger or smaller degree especially due to agricultural and cattle raising activities and the industrialization and urbanization impacts, leaving only a few patches where the original vegetation is present (Silva 2019). The urban areas, especially in big metropolises, have suffered along the years with their biodiversity loss due to the decrease in the green areas by civil construction or by the urban population growth (Alencar et al 2017). Big Brazilian metropolises as the city of Fortaleza, capital of Ceará state, Brazilian Northeast, the 5th biggest metropolis in the country, has 312,353 km of urbanized area and an estimated population of 2,669,342 inhabitants (IBGE 2019). Located in the Atlantic coast, Fortaleza has its native forest vegetation reduced and considerably degraded due to urban expansion causing an irrecoverable damage to the fauna and flora biodiversity of the region. The hydric resources suffer with the deforestation of the riparian vegetation which has a crucial role in feeding and sheltering the local fauna (Fortaleza 2003)

Objectives

Methods

Results