Effects of palm trees cover and forest distance on the moss distribution in the National Forest of Silvânia, Goiás, Brazil

Abstract

Facilitation is the ecological process in which a species favors the establishment of another species in a determined environment increasing their survival and reproduction. The occurrence of facilitator plants may be important for the distribution of some species in harsh environments, such as the case of mosses in environments with low humidity and high temperature. Our aim was to investigate if palm trees favor the occurrence of mosses in an area of Cerrado senso stricto in the Floresta Nacional de Silvânia, Goiás, Brazil. For this purpose, we test the effect of abundance and cover of Syagrus flexuosa (Arecaceae) in the Cerrado plots on the richness and abundance of mosses. Additionally, we test if the richness and abundance of mosses are higher in plots close to forest than in most distant plots. Our results showed that plots with higher palm tree cover had higher moss richness and abundance. Nevertheless, the moss distribution was not influenced by palm tree abundance, which can be explained by asymmetric growth pattern of S. flexuosa. Additionally, we found that more distant plots had lower richness and abundance of mosses than the areas closer to the forest. Our outcomes show the mosses- palm tree association may facilitate the occurrence of mosses in dry environments, as the Cerrado senso stricto.