Modelagem e espacialização do estoque de carbono em fragmentos nativos de minas gerais em função de fatores edafoclimáticos

Abstract

Native forests have an important role in carbon storage in different compartments and responds differently to the edaphoclimatic characteristics. However, these information are little clarified for biomes and phytophysiognomies of tropical forests. In this sense, the objective of this work was to identify the factors that influence the carbon stock in different vegetation compartments: litter, live and dead arboreal, five different soil depths up to one meter, and roots, at the same depths as the soil and divided into three thicknesses, quantifying them for the native forest areas of Minas Gerais (MG), Brazil. The analysis of the edaphoclimatic characteristics in each phytophysiognomy was conducted by means of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and the means by phytophysiognomy were obtained, with its significance tested applying the mixed model with Dummy. The modeling to identify the edaphoclimatic factors that act on the carbon stocks of each compartment and in total was conducted by means of the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator. Spatialization of the carbon stock in the entire State was done by kriging with regression. We verified that the phytophysiognomies were grouped by biome in relation to the edaphoclimatic variables. It was possible to quantify the carbon stocks by phytophysiognomy and by compartment, which were considerably diverse. The variations of the edaphoclimatic characteristics caused distinct results over the carbon stock of the evaluated phytophysiognomies/arboreal biomes. Finally, the mapping of the total carbon stock allowed the estimation and visualization of its variations throughout the State. This stock represented 2.81 Pg of carbon. This stresses the importance of MG as a hotspot for the preservation of global carbon sto ck, demonstrating the need to expand the issues concerning the conservation of these areas that present great potential in ceasing to be drains and becoming sources of carbon. For such, it is still necessary to reduce anthropization, be it by deforestations or burnings, or still by the action of climatic change, at times little noticed in a small scale of time.