Abstract
The diversity and richness of the Brazilian flora are documented in herbarium collections. When areas are deforested, but not documented, we lose both flora and the opportunity to know which species occupied those areas. The south-eastern mesoregion of Mato Grosso State, comprising 22 municipalities, has undergone the loss of native vegetation cover, accelerated by the substantial expansion of agribusiness. For an in-depth look at the consequences and the current state of the flora in that mesoregion, we consulted both speciesLink and JABOT databases. More specifically, we carried out a comprehensive study of herbarium collections by municipality and compiled data including scientific name, collection date, collection locality, collector name and observations made during collection. We obtained 5,861 records of angiosperms, ferns and lycophytes of 160 families, 770 genera and 1,792 species. The specimens are deposited in 80 herbaria of which the Herbarium of Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso (UFMT) hosts the largest collection. Rondonópolis was the most sampled municipality, whereas 50% of the municipalities were poorly sampled and one showed no collection records at all. Amongst the species occurring only in Mato Grosso, eleven were collected only in that mesoregion and twenty species were under some degree of threat. Our study recommends increasing collection and identification efforts to enable effective conservation actions and improve richness estimates for the State of Mato Grosso and the Cerrado, in general, before more of the flora is lost to deforestation.
Highlights
Brazil is recognised as one of the richest countries in plant diversity
Mato Grosso consists of 903,329.7 km2 and occupies 56.23% of the Brazilian Midwest region, bordering the States of Amazonas, Pará, Tocantins, Goiás and Mato Grosso do Sul and sharing its borders with Bolivia (Miranda and Bastos 2016)
The southeastern mesoregion of Mato Grosso occupies an area of 71,847.7 km2 and comprises 22 municipalities within the Cerrado domain: Alto Araguaia, Alto Graças, Alto Taquari, Araguainha, Campo Verde, Dom Aquino, General Carneiro, Guiratinga, Itiquira, Jaciara, Juscimeira, Pontal do Araguaia, Ponte Branca, Poxoréo, Primavera do Leste, Ribeirãozinho, Pedra Preta, Rondonópolis, São Jóse do Povo, São Pedro da Cipa, Tesouro and Torixoréu (Miranda and Bastos 2016) (Fig. 1)
Summary
Brazil is recognised as one of the richest countries in plant diversity. The Brazilian Flora has recorded the occurrence of approximately 38,676 species of vascular plants and bryophytes of which Angiosperms correspond to over 90% of the total (Flora do Brasil 2020). Available data show that approximately 57.4% of Angiosperm species are endemic to the country (BGF - The Brazil Flora Group 2015). Specimens records are documents that certify flora diversity and richness of a given region or country and are deposited in botanical collections. These collections exist of living or herbarium material and their associated data (Peixoto and Morim 2003). One of the main purposes of herbarium collections is to serve as taxonomic repositories: storing specimens allows users to return to them over decades and centuries to check the identification of plants and study the characteristics of the given species, reference collections used to identify species and describe new species (Greve et al 2016)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call