The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) was established by the Conference of Parties in 2002 todecrease the loss of plant diversity, reduce poverty and contribute to sustainable development. To achieve thisoverarching goal, the GSPC has established a series of targets, one of which is to ensure that plant diversity iswell understood, so that it can be effectively conserved and used in a sustainable manner. Brazil hosts morethan 46,000 species of plants, algae and fungi, representing one of the most biodiverse countries on Earth, andplaying a key role in the GSPC. To meet the GSPC goals of Target 1 and facilitate access to plant diversity,Brazil committed to preparing the List of Species of the Brazilian Flora (2008–2015) and the Brazilian Flora2020 (2016–present). Managing all the information associated with such great biodiversity has proven to be anextremely challenging task. Here, we synthesize the history of these projects, focusing on the multidisciplinaryand collaborative approach adopted to develop and manage the inclusion of all the knowledge generated thoughdigital information systems. We further describe the methods used, challenges faced, and strategies adopted, aswell as summarize advances to date and prospects for completing the Brazilian flora in 2020.Key words: database, diversity, hotspots, taxonomy.

Intense competition with lianas (woodclimbers) can limit tree growth, reproduction, andsurvival. However, the negative effects of liana loadson tree allometry have not yet been addressed. Weinvestigated the hypothesis that liana loading on treecrown alters tree’s allometry, expressed throughslenderness (height–diameter ratio). The relationshipbetween trunk slenderness and percentage of treecrown covered by lianas was investigated for 12 treespecies from 10 fragments of the SemideciduousSeasonal Forest in Southeastern Brazil. We also testedwhether the relationship between slenderness andwood density differ between trees without lianas andtrees heavily infested. Liana loads significantly alteredtree allometry by decreasing slenderness, even whenlianas covered less than 25% of tree crown. Heavywoodspecies decreased their trunk slenderness in agreater ratio than light-wood species. Our findingsindicate that liana infestation shifts tree allometry, andthese effects are stronger on heavy-wood tree species.

QuestionWe aimed to analyze how the topography, temperature and rainfall influence the floristic distribution in three different topographic areas and their surrounding vegetation. We addressed three main questions: (i) How is the distribution of species among the topographic areas? (ii) Which abiotic variable is driving this distribution? and (iii) What is the difference among the mountain forests and between mountain forests and the Caatinga vegetation?LocationThe Maranguape mountain forest were divided into three topographic categories: windward (600–800 m, WMA), leeward (600–800 m, LMA) and top (above 800 m, TMA). We also considered another six areas of mountain forests and four Caatinga areas in Ceará State.MethodsWe calculated different structural parameters and the floristic diversity of each category. A Principal Correspondence Analysis was performed to analyze the indirect ordination of forest sites by species abundance. A Canonical Correspondence Analysis was conducted to evaluate which variables were driving species distribution. We used non‐metric multidimensional scaling distance and the average linkage method to investigate the similarity among mountain forests and Caatinga.ResultsA total of 1,536 individuals belonging to 144 tree species distributed in 44 families and 93 genera were recorded. Myrtaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae were the most species‐rich families. Myrcia splendens had the highest importance value followed by Guapira nitida and Mollinedia ovata. The leeward slope showed the highest richness and diversity index, whereas the windward showed the highest density and the top showed the highest basal area. The ordination indicated a greater similarity between TMA and WMA than LMA.ConclusionOur results suggest that temperature, precipitation and slope angle are the abiotic factors driving species distribution in Maranguape. Those mountains are heavily anthropized and continuously explored, therefore these outcomes will be useful for conservation and restoration purposes in the poorly known semiarid region of Northeast Brazil.

Tree crowns determine light interception, carbon and water exchange. Thus, understanding the factors causing tree crown allometry to vary at the tree and stand level matters greatly for the development of future vegetation modelling and for the calibration of remote sensing products. Nevertheless, we know little about large‐scale variation and determinants in tropical tree crown allometry. In this study, we explored the continental variation in scaling exponents of site‐specific crown allometry and assessed their relationships with environmental and stand‐level variables in the tropics.LocationGlobal tropics.Time periodEarly 21st century.Major taxa studiedWoody plants.MethodsUsing a dataset of 87,737 trees distributed among 245 forest and savanna sites across the tropics, we fitted site‐specific allometric relationships between crown dimensions (crown depth, diameter and volume) and stem diameter using power‐law models. Stand‐level and environmental drivers of crown allometric relationships were assessed at pantropical and continental scales.ResultsThe scaling exponents of allometric relationships between stem diameter and crown dimensions were higher in savannas than in forests. We identified that continental crown models were better than pantropical crown models and that continental differences in crown allometric relationships were driven by both stand‐level (wood density) and environmental (precipitation, cation exchange capacity and soil texture) variables for both tropical biomes. For a given diameter, forest trees from Asia and savanna trees from Australia had smaller crown dimensions than trees in Africa and America, with crown volumes for some Asian forest trees being smaller than those of trees in African forests.Main conclusionsOur results provide new insight into geographical variability, with large continental differences in tropical tree crown allometry that were driven by stand‐level and environmental variables. They have implications for the assessment of ecosystem function and for the monitoring of woody biomass by remote sensing techniques in the global tropics.

This article visits the history of Brazil-Sweden’s partnership in botany and the contribution of Anders Fredrik Regnell and other botanical collectors to the knowledge of Brazilian flora. The importance of the herbarium of Stockholm (S) is widely recognized for its collections of Brazilian plants, one of the largest in the world. The majority of the collections from Brazil date from the period between the second half of nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The main collectors of Brazilian flora from that phase, whose bulk of collections are in Stockholm are Anders Regnell, Gustaf Malme, Per Dusén, Carl Lindman and many others sponsored by the Regnellian fund. The herbarium also houses substantial collections of August Glaziou, a great contributor to the knowledge of the flora of state of Goiás, and Adolf Ducke, pioneer in the taxonomy of Amazonian tree species. The cooperation between Brazil and Sweden is currently being renewed through Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden and the Reflora Program, allowing repatriation of Brazilian specimens housed in Stockholm.

This study investigates the influence of fragment size on tree species composition, speciesrichness and on individual groups of species within 11 semideciduous forest fragments insoutheastern Brazil. We compared same-sized samples of 500 trees from 10 fragments<100 ha, allocated to three size categories, with three 500-tree samples collected in differentareas within a large forest, used as a reference forest. The variation in species richness,in the proportion of species/individuals in dispersal modes, and in the proportion of rarespecies was not related to fragment size. Nonetheless, comparisons between the mean valuesof these variables of each fragment size categories, using 95% confidence intervals,showed a wider range of variation within the category of small-sized fragments than inthe other size categories. NMS ordination plot also suggested the absence of a relationshipbetween fragment area and tree species composition. However, multiple regressions usingthe scores from the NMS ordination as response variables, and area and disturbance intensitiesas predictor variables, suggested that the interaction of area and disturbance mightbe a good predictor of species composition. Pre-existing environmental heterogeneityand geographical proximity also appeared to play a role in the variations of forest compositionamong the fragments studied. Our results demonstrated the high conservation value of small forest fragments.

Abstract: In this study we evaluated floristic composition patterns of communities of climbers within ten inventoriescarried out in semideciduous forest fragments of southeastern Brazil. One of the inventories is original, beingcarried out for the present study in Ribeirão Cachoeira forest, Campinas, São Paulo State, Southeastern Brazil. Thisinventory was then pooled together to other nine climbers’ inventories made in other forests of Southeastern Brazilto form a data base, which was examined regarding species richness, similarity, species distribution and climbingmethods. The total number of species obtained was 355, belonging to 145 genera and 43 families. The ten mostdiverse families Bignoniaceae (45 species), Fabaceae (42), Malpighiaceae (36), Asteraceae (31), Apocynaceae(29), Sapindaceae (28), Convolvulaceae (21), Cucurbitaceae (14), Passifloraceae (10), and Euphorbiaceae (8)contributed to 74.4% of the total number of species recorded. The commonest climbing method in the studied siteswas main stem or branch twining, accounting for 178 species or 50.1% of the total, the second commonest wastendril climbing (121 species, 34.1%), and the least, scrambling (56 species, 15.8%). We found a high percentageof exclusive species i.e., those occurring in only one forest site, which accounted for 49.3% of the total recorded.The mean similarity among forest sites (30%) may be considered low. The climbing species contribution to the totalwood plant richness recorded on the forests sites was very high in some of the sites (up to 52.5%). These resultsindicated the importance of climber communities to plant diversity for semideciduous forests in SoutheasternBrazil, enhancing the regional diversity and the conservation value of these forest remnants.Keywords: lianas, climbing mechanism, floristic, similarity, NMS.

An inventory of the woody flora (trees and shrubs), was carried out in the Ribeirão Cachoeria forest (233.7ha, 650m high, 46°55’58’’W, 22°50’13’’S), the second largest and best conserved fragment of semideciduoustropical forest in the municipality of Campinas, São Paulo state, Southeastern Brazil. The soil is a red-yellowpodsol and the climate is of Köppen’s Cwag type. Collections were made from August/1996 to September/1997.Only fertile individuals with a perimeter at breast height of 9cm or greater were included in the survey. Onehyndred and seventhy five species were identified, belonging to 119 genera and 49 families. The most importantfamilies were Myrtaceae (14 species), Rutaceae and Fabaceae (13), Caesalpiniaceae (11), Solanaceae (9), andRubiaceae (8). Some species were found for the first time in the region: Tachigali multijuga Benth. and Schoepfiabrasiliensis A.DC. The flowering peak for most species was from August to October. Maximum fruit productionwas from August to November. Most species are zoochoric (58%), but 23% were anemochoric and 19% autochoric.The floristic composition of this forest and another 20 forests from São Paulo state were compared. The results obtained indicate the existence of distinct groups of forests. The most homogeneus group contains forests fromthe municipality of Campinas with similarity of 40%. This suggests that these forests are possibly fragments of aoriginal continuous forest in the Campinas region.