Study casts new light on vegetation in Serra dos Carajás, Brazil

This week, scientists from the Emílio Goeldi Museum and the Vale Technological Institute (ITV) launched the first publication on the studies into the vegetation of the Serra dos Carajás, a mountain range in the state of Pará, within the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. The release brings together the work of 55 botanists and over 22 Brazilian and international institutions, as well as data on 139 genera and 248 species of local flora.

The project, entitled “Flora das Cangas da Serra dos Carajás, Pará, Brasil” in the original, started in 2015. By the end of 2017, the research may be able to catalog nearly 10% of the 7,071 species listed for the state, said representatives from the museum.

Altogether, three volumes will be published in Rodriguésia, a traditional magazine on botany from Rio's Botanical Garden. The study also had the of the Chico Mendes Institute for the Conservation of Biodiversity (ICMBio).

One of the project's novelties was the registration of four other species of Ipomoea, a flower native to the mountain chain but amply distributed in other regions of the country. Previous data mention three species of Ipomoea, considered endemic to the area: the Ipomoea carajasensis, the Ipomoea cavalcantei, and the Ipomoea marabaensis. The new survey has brought the data up to date, and now it has become known that there is a total of seven species of this genus in the canga region. Other plant groups underwent the same process.

Conservation versus exploitation

According to the museum, the National Forest of Carajás is home to one of the world's biggest mineral provinces, not to mention the cangas, plant ecosystems associated with locations with elevated iron-bearing rocks. The cangas, or ferruginous fields, can be found in several locations in Brazil and are known for housing special animals and plants well adapted to local conditions.

However, as they are usually associated with the country's main iron deposits, the cangas pose major challenges to any research study or plan attempting to conciliate the conservation of biodiversity and the exploration of natural resources.

The cangas in the Serra dos Carajás are submerged in the Amazon Rainforest, and are regarded as the big gap in the knowledge about Brazilian flora. The work of the Goeldi Museum and the ITV aims to bridge part of that gap and also facilitate the dialog between science, the productive sector, and the agencies in charge of the environmental licensing in the region, with in-depth information about the species in the ecosystem.

The survey makes accurate data available and supersedes previous, outdated information. The material collected since 2015 has already been incorporated into the database, which includes the 8.8 thousand samples from the museum's herbarium, in Belém.

The compilation will allow scholars to draw an analysis of this flora as compared to that of other cangas in the country and other rock formations already ed in the Amazon Rainforest, like the Cristalino State Park, in Mato Grosso state, and the Serra do Aracá, in the state of Amazonas.

The Goeldi Museum and the ITV

The Goeldi Museum is located in Pará, northern Brazil. It is the oldest institution in the Amazon Rainforest, founded in October 6, 1866, and was a pioneer in the scientific research into the flora of the Serra dos Carajás, with its first collection expedition conducted in 1969. Connected with the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation, and Communication, the museum has 18 scientific collections with over 4.5 million items listed as historic and six post-graduate programs.

The ITV, in turn, was created eight years ago by Vale, the company that operates iron, copper, and nickel mines in the southeast of Pará. The institute aims to seek innovative solutions to enhance the firm's operational performance protecting the environment and local traditional communities.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira