Morro Grande, Brazil

Morro Grande, Brazil

The Morro Grande nature reserve covers 10,000 ha with a predominant vegetation type is classified as lower montane rain forest. The regional climate is classified as temperate and rainy with mean monthly temperature ranging from 11◦C to 27◦C, and average annual rainfall around 1400mm. The reserve is structurally connected to the Paranapiacaba mountain range with 1,109,546ha of forests, and was used as reference mature forest scenario for studies of FORMIND with forest fragmentation (Groeneveld et al. 2009, Pütz et al. 2011). It was thus compared to three small isolated forest fragments of approximately 2 – 5.5 ha and an estimated age of 40–80 years.

References:

Pütz et al., Ecological Modelling 2011. Fragmentation drives tropical forest fragments to early successional states: A modelling study for Brazilian Atlantic forests.

Groeneveld et al., Ecological Modelling 2009. The impact of fragmentation and density regulation on forest succession in the Atlantic rain forest.