Davi Rodrigo Rossatto

Background: Trait-based ecology has become central for understanding plant form, function and ecosystem processes, but progress has been hampered by biased representation in trait databases. As such, global trait syntheses remain strongly biased towards temperate forest biomes. Tropical savannas are the most extensive, biodiverse and disturbance-driven ecosystems worldwide, yet are poorly represented in functional trait databases, limiting ecological inference and applied decision-making. Scope: Here, we introduce the Cerrado Plant Traits (CPT), an open-access initiative compiling and standardising plant functional trait data for the Brazilian Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse tropical savanna. CPT integrates trait information for all major plant organs (whole-plant, root, shoot, leaf, flower, fruit and seed) across vegetation types in the Cerrado, drawing on a collaborative and inclusive research network. The current version of CPT compiles data from 148 datasets, totalling 113,859 curated trait records for 2,134 taxonomically verified species across 150 families. Trait records span pristine, degraded and restored environments and capture both interspecific and intraspecific variation. Whole-plant and leaf traits dominate the current dataset, while belowground and reproductive traits remain comparatively underrepresented, highlighting key priorities for future research. Conclusions: By substantially increasing the representation of savanna species in global trait repositories, CPT enables tests of ecological hypotheses across multiple levels of organization, analyses of trait–environment relationships across fire, soil and climatic gradients, and robust comparisons across forest–savanna transitions. Beyond its scientific value, CPT provides a practical, standardised resource to support conservation planning, restoration programs and evidence-based policy in a biodiversity hotspot facing accelerating land-use and climate pressures.

Background: Tropical savannas worldwide have been experiencing woody encroachment, i.e. the rapid increase in density and biomass of woody plants in formerly open environments. In savannas, this process is driven primarily by the absence of fire, which allows woody species to outcompete the herbaceous layer, ultimately leading to losses in ground-layer biodiversity. Scope: The causes of savanna encroachment are well documented. However, the mechanisms behind how encroachment excludes typical ground-layer species are not clearly understood, and are typically classified as a simplistic effect of ‘shade intolerance’. Here we briefly review the encroachment phenomenon, its causes and effects in open savanna vegetation. To develop a mechanistic hypothesis for the gradual decline of ground-layer vegetation, we synthesized leaf trait and physiological data from ground-layer plants. Encroachment changes canopy cover and the light environment, affecting the richness and diversity of ground-layer species and reflecting the progressive transition from open to closed-canopy environments. This pattern may be related to the inability of ground-layer plants to maintain a positive carbon balance under shaded conditions, a physiological state equivalent to carbon starvation. Although species can show significant leaf plasticity in response to light conditions, they depend on carbohydrate reserves stored in underground organs to maintain vital processes when photosynthetic capacity declines. These reserves, however, are finite, ultimately leading to individual mortality and species exclusion. Conclusions: Shade intolerance alone offers a simplistic explanation for ground layer exclusion under encroachment. We propose that encroachment leads to a physiological response in ground-layer plants, changing sink–source aspects in a process analogous to the carbon starvation hypothesis. We suggest that analysing primary metabolism and carbon-based traits is essential to quantify plant persistence and determine the physiological thresholds under encroachment.

Temperature and humidity are key factors influencing seed germination, varying across vegetation types and in response to disturbances such as fire. This study investigated germination, recruitment, and seedling growth of the generalist tree Vochysia tucanorum Mart. (Vochysiaceae) in natural environments of southern Brazil, including savanna, savanna – forest transition, and forest vegetation. Three months after a fire event, we established 12 nurseries for treatment (four per vegetation type, each containing 15 seeds) and monitored environmental conditions and seedling development from December 2022 to July 2023. Data on temperature, humidity, germination, mortality, seedling height, and cotyledon thickness were compared between burn and unburn treatments. Average temperature differed among vegetation types but not between burned and unburned areas, while humidity increased by 28% in burned plots. The number of seeds that germinated was significantly higher in burned areas across all vegetation types. Seedlings in the savanna were smaller (mean 16 mm) than those in the transition (29.6 mm) and forest sites. Cotyledon thickness varied over time and between treatments but was not affected by vegetation type. Despite the wide ecological distribution of V. tucanorum , germination and recruitment were rare events. The limited germination in savanna vegetation indicates that microclimatic constraints, particularly reduced water availability, restrict seedling establishment. Once germinated, seedling growth depends largely on cotyledon reserves, which deplete more slowly in burned environments. These results improve our understanding of post‐fire regeneration in a generalist wood species and demonstrate how fire and microclimatic conditions jointly influence recruitment dynamics in fire‐prone environments.

Premise: Flammability‐related traits in open savanna plant communities may shift in response to fire frequency (high vs. low) and history (recently vs. fire exclusion). Dead biomass accumulation and moisture content are expected to drive flammability components (combustibility and consumability). We hypothesized that in low fire frequency and fire exclusion areas, dead biomass accumulates, prolonging combustion duration with higher maximum temperatures and biomass consumption. Conversely, greater biomass should enhance combustibility, while higher moisture should dampen it. Methods: In Cerrado open savannas, we selected areas with high or low fire frequency and areas that were recently burned or excluded from fire for the last 21 years. For grasses, forbs, and shrubs, we measured the following flammability‐related traits: moisture content, dead biomass, burn rate, maximum fire temperature, and burned biomass. Results: Dead biomass remained similar between fire frequencies and histories. Plants burned slowly (~0.5 cm s ^–1 ) in areas where fire frequency was low or excluded. In all areas, ca 60% of the plant biomass was consumed by fire. The percentage of initial dead biomass increased the flammability components until 75% dead biomass, but beyond this threshold, burn rate, temperature, and burned biomass declined. Moisture content consistently reduced temperature and amount of biomass burned. Conclusions: Areas with fire excluded had slower fire spread but the amount of plant biomass consumed was not substantially lower. The amount of dead biomass has nonlinear relationships with combustibility and consumability, indicating that areas with more biomass accumulation may have lower flammability. Thus, we need to investigate how flammability‐related traits vary in plant communities under different fire regimes to understand fire behavior and improve management decisions.

Over the past 5000 years, the predictable climate seasonality of the Brazilian Cerrado has played a crucial role in shaping the life history strategies of species and the structure of ecological communities of this global biodiversity hotspot. However, this biome is becoming hotter and drier, with a notable lengthening and intensification of the dry season. Declining rainfall results from three key factors: the expansion of the South Atlantic Subtropical Anticyclone, warming of northern tropical Atlantic waters, and reduced evapotranspiration during the dry season due to widespread land conversion. The evapotranspiration drop also plays a pivotal role in regional warming and higher vapor pressure deficit. Climatic change already affects the physiology, phenology, and reproduction of the Cerrado plants, while also driving community‐level alterations, such as woody encroachment and ant–plant–herbivore interaction outcomes. Dry season lengthening is likely to reduce the biomass and alter the dynamics of microbial communities, with negative effects also extending to invertebrates and other groups. The pronounced warming reduces the amount and duration of dewfall, an important water source for insect pollinators and other animals with low vagility during periods of drought. Concerning vertebrates, the most suggested impact is the loss of specialist or endemic species, with restricted distributions, and the expansion of generalist species, lowering the levels of β‐ and γ‐diversity across the region and making communities poorer and more homogenized. In summary, climate change is actively reshaping Cerrado communities, and species' survival will largely depend on their phenotypic plasticity, evolutionary response, and dispersal capabilities. This article is categorized under: Assessing Impacts of Climate Change > Observed Impacts of Climate Change Climate, Ecology, and Conservation > Observed Ecological Changes Trans‐disciplinary Perspectives > Regional Reviews

In tree‐dominated ecosystems, the behaviour of surface fires is largely controlled by the structure of fine fuels. Because leaves make up most of the fine fuels, the traits of those leaves—their size, shape and leaf area for a given mass—help determine the impacts of vegetation on fire regimes. In this study, we developed several methods to better quantify the linkage between leaf traits and fire behaviour and improve our understanding of the role of tree species traits in a Brazilian forest/savanna mosaic fire regime. We developed a novel framework to partition leaf volume into a linear combination of orthogonal traits and separate their influence on flammability, using experimental burns of constructed fuel beds. The key strengths of the framework are the use of specific volume rather than bulk density, and the representation of specific volume as a linear combination of uncorrelated variables: leaf size, curl and specific leaf area. We collected intensive data on leaf traits, including foliar aluminium content and leaf volume measured with a 3D scanner, from 90 woody species of savannas and forests in São Paulo, Brazil, to assess the importance of various measures of leaf traits in determining surface fire behaviour. Greater fireline intensity was primarily driven by greater leaf size, with leaf curl having a large but secondary effect. The effect of leaf size and shape was almost entirely mediated by their effects on litter specific volume. Specific leaf area increased flammability both directly and indirectly, while foliar aluminium concentration directly reduced flammability. Forest and savanna species did not differ in flammability, but generalist species were slightly more flammable, due to a combination of leaf size and specific leaf area. Simple measures of leaf traits performed as effectively as time‐consuming 3D scanning methods. Using uncorrelated measures of leaf traits allowed us to separate the independent contributions of leaf traits to experimental fire behaviour. The framework we present highlights the importance of leaf structure and litter volume while remaining flexible enough to incorporate leaf chemistry or other traits. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Plant phenological responses occur based on interactions between environmental factors (rainfall, temperature, photoperiod, daily insolation, and soil properties) and functional traits (Ragusa-Netto and Silva, 2007 RAGUSA-NETTO, J. and SILVA, R.R., 2007. Canopy phenology of a dry forest in western Brazil. Brazilian Journal of Biology = Revista Brasileira de Biologia, vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 569-575. http://doi.org/10.1590/S1519-69842007000300024 PMid:18094842. http://doi.org/10.1590/S1519-69842007000... ; Pereira et al., 2024 PEREIRA, C.C, BOAVENTURA, M.G., CORNELISSEN, T., NUNES, Y.R.F, and CASTRO, G.C., 2024. What triggers phenological events in plants under seasonal environments? A study with phylogenetically related plant species in sympatry. Brazilian Journal of Biology, vol. 84, e257969. https://doi.org/10.1590/1519-6984.257969. https://doi.org/10.1590/1519-6984.257969... ; Barros et al., 2023 BARROS, A.G., COSTA, J.S., LIMA, M.R.O., SOUZA, I.P., MIRANDA, L.A.P, COUTO-SANTOS, A.P.L. and FUNCH, L.S., 2023. Effects of ENSO events on the intensity, seasonality, and diversity of reproductive phenology of Miconia (Melastomataceae) species in tropical rainforest. Brazilian Journal of Biology, vol. 83, e277897. https://doi.org/10.1590/1519-6984.277897 https://doi.org/10.1590/1519-6984.277897... ), with wood and leaf traits being the major determinants of plant growth cycles, especially leaf fall and budding, in seasonal ecosystems under well-defined drought periods (dry season) (Neves et al. 2022 NEVES, S.P.S., SANTOS, M.G.M., VITÓRIA, A.P., ROSSATTO, D.R., MIRANDA, L.A.P. and FUNCH, L.S., 2022. The roles of functional traits in canopy maintenance along a savanna/seasonally dry tropical forest gradient in northeastern Brazil. Flora, vol. 292, pp. 152090. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.flora.2022.152090. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.flora.2022.1520... ). Hancornia speciosa Gomes (Apocynaceae), known traditionally as mangabeira, is a typical species of the coastal environments, savannas, and plateaus, distributed across Brazil (Flora and Funga do Brasil, 2024 FLORA E FUNGA DO BRASIL, 2024 [viewed 18 April 2024]. Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro. Reflora. Available from: http://floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br/. http://floradobrasil.jbrj.gov.br/... ).