Water availability determines physiognomic gradient in an area of low-fertility soils under Cerrado vegetation

• Published in: Plant ecology 2011-07, Vol.212 (7), p.1135-1147
• Main Authors: de Assis, Ana Carolina Cunha, Coelho, Ricardo Marques, da Silva Pinheiro, Eduardo, Durigan, Giselda
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acid soils; Acidity; Aluminum; Analysis; Applied Ecology; Biodiversity; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Cerrado; Clay; Community & Population Ecology; Ecology; Forest management; Forest soils; Grasslands; Hydrology; Life Sciences; Organic matter; Physiognomy; Plant Ecology; Plant populations; Plants; Sand soils; Sandy soils; Soil acidity; Soil classification; Soil ecology; Soil fertility; Soil horizons; Soil moisture; Soil morphology; Soil structure; Soil water; Soil water content; Terrestial Ecology; Vegetation; Water availability
• ISSN: 1385-0237; 1573-5052
• DOI: 10.1007/s11258-010-9893-8

Soil is one of the environmental elements to influence Cerrado vegetation. Aluminum toxicity of Cerrado soils is well known, but the importance of water availability is still to be understood, especially in Cerrado under wetter climates. We studied the association between Cerrado physiognomies (cerrado sensu stricto and cerradão) and morphological, chemical, physical, and physical-hydrical soil attributes at southwestern São Paulo State, Brazil. Characterization of soil morphology, classification and sample collection for particle-size distribution, and chemical and water-retention analyses were carried out in 15 permanent plots, where vegetation was characterized floristically and structurally. Simple correlation and canonical correspondence analyses were performed with soil data. Classification of soils (U.S. Soil Taxonomy) with very low clay contents was not able to separate soils under cerraddo—forestry physiognomy—from those under cerrado sensu stricto—savannic physiognomy, even though it tends to distinguish soils under greater biomass from those under lower biomass physiognomies. High soil acidity of all studied soils and increased at the sites with greater contents of organic matter, mainly with the cerradão physiognomy, precluded Al toxicity as a cause of the physiognomic gradient within Cerrado. Clay content, microporosity, and residual and saturation moisture were the most significant soil attributes to correlate directly with the cerradão physiognomy, indicating that water availability is the main factor explaining the physiognomic gradient of Cerrado vegetation in a local scale, where climate and soil fertility do not vary spatially.