Quanto da flora ameaçada no domínio da caatinga está abrigada em unidades de conservação: Estudo de caso em Pernambuco

Abstract

To know the flora species and their endangered classification is essential to plant conservation policies. One of conservation strategies are Protected Areas (Unidades de Conservação - UC in portuguese), have the role of contributing to the conservation of species. In this research, the objective was to carry out a survey of flora species, occurrences in the Brazilian assessment of 2022 as threatened with extinction and which occur in the Pernambuco Caatinga domain, and to verify whether their occurrences coincide with the records in the UCs inserted in this domain. Thus, a list of species by UC was drawn up, which had as a final product a checklist of the angiosperm flora of the 29 UCs in the Caatinga domain of Pernambuco. Additionally, to list the endangered species of the Caatinga flora that occur in Pernambuco, a dynamic table was constructed, with a filter of the species of the domain, evaluated on official document from Ministry of the Environment (MMA Portaria no 148/2022) and available for National Center for Conservation of Flora (CNCFlora). Species classified in the categories Endangered (En), Vulnerable (Vu) and Critically Endangered (Cr) were considered in the research. Through comparative analysis of the flora checklist of the 29 UCs with the list of evaluated species (Ordinance MMA nº 148/2022), it was verified whether species threatened with extinction are being protected in the UCs studied. Regarding knowledge of the flora of the 29 UCs, it was found that for 11 UCs there is no floristic list available, and of these, 7 UCs have some collection record in SpecieLink and/or Flora Herbarium. The checklist resulted in 1,392 species of angiosperms, distributed in 129 families and 622 genera, ranging from 1 to 450 the number of species per UC. Of the 7,283 species of the Brazilian flora, assessed by Portaria MMA no 148/2022, it was observed that 820 species are inserted in the Caatinga domain and 248 species are threatened with extinction. For the Caatinga domain in Pernambuco, 294 species were evaluated, 31 of which were classified as having some degree of threat (21 En, 9 Vu and 1 Cr species). From the checklist, it was found that 203 species were evaluated by the ordinance and only 16 species are classified in one of the considered categories. When crossing these 16 species with the 31 from the Caatinga of Pernambuco, only 10 species from the checklist of the UCs are classified in one of the three categories of threats and, therefore, are common to both lists, while the others occur in other states, which do not Pernambuco, and/or in other phytogeographic domains, other than the Caatinga. It is concluded that many UCs in the Caatinga domain of Pernambuco need surveys of their flora and that the number of endangered species protected in these UCs is quite small, notably in those that do not include the “Brejos de Altitude”. Therefore, taking as a starting point the checklist of UC flora species, this work contributes to the advancement of knowledge about plants, their gaps and risk assessments of UC flora species, in the Caatinga domain of Pernambuco.