ESTADO ATUAL DO CONHECIMENTO DA FLORA DO CERRADO NA MICRORREGIÃO DE RONDONÓPOLIS, SUDESTE DE MATO GROSSO, BRASIL

Abstract

In recent decades, knowledge about the Cerrado's flora has advanced, but a significant portion of its territory remains undersampled or not represented by floristic studies. Additionally, unsampled areas are often subjected to intense land use changes, as seen in southeastern Mato Grosso. In this study, we describe the current state of knowledge regarding the Cerrado flora in the Rondonópolis-MT microregion to identify gaps and guide future research. We conducted a literature review on the flora of this microregion and summarized the findings graphically. We found 18 studies conducted between 2004 and 2021, of which 83.3% were carried out in the municipality of Rondonópolis, where there is a permanent research center, while clear gaps appeared in the territory of the other seven municipalities of the microregion. Most studies (88.8%) surveyed tree-shrub species, which were sampled mainly in the cerrado sensu stricto and cerradão (savana forest) phytophysiognomies. Only 38.8% of the studies had the floristic survey as their primary objective. Our research highlights the need to enhance floristic inventories of various plant groups in the Rondonópolis microregion and to geographically distribute studies more effectively, reversing or mitigating the 'herbarium effect' resulting from the concentration of floristic studies near a reference research center.