Efficiency of regenerating as an indicator of ecologic restoration in Cerrado, Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of regenerating as an ecological indicator of restoration in riparian forests in the Cerrado, DF, from January/2012 to January/2013. The restoration experiment contained six treatments with three repetitions each (T1 = Nucleation; T2 = Nucleation + perches; T3 = perches; T4 = planting in rows: lines with fast growing and good covering species and diversity lines; T5 = control with brachiaria; T6 = brachiaria suppression). The percentage of coverage of saplingwas made using the Braun-Blanquet method, and then applied the nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test. There was a significant difference between the initial and final cover for the T1. The other treatments there was little increase in the coverage of sapling, but not significant, even as in the increase between treatments. There were no differences between treatments when analyzing only the density of sapling, which may be associated with high mortality rate of certain species. Although early, the percentage of coverage of sapling was a good indicator of the ecological restoration process, according with aspects: sensitivity, results, cost, understanding and interpretation, predictability or trend and scale. Thus, it can be concluded that the percentage of coverage of sapling demonstrated efficiency as an indicator.