Cerrado

The Cerrado's climate is typical of the wetter savanna regions of the world, with a semi-humid tropical climate. The Cerrado is limited to two dominant seasons throughout the year: Wet and dry. Annual temperatures for the Cerrado average between 22 and 27 °C and average precipitation between 80–200 cm for over 90% of the area. This ecoregion has a very strong dry season during the southern winter (approx. April–September). ==Flora==

, Goiás, Brazil The Cerrado is characterized by unique vegetation types. Probably around 800 species of trees are found in the Cerrado. Much of the Cerrado is dominated by the Vochysiaceae (23 species in the Cerrado) due to the abundance of three species in the genus Qualea. The amount of potassium, nitrogen and phosphorus has been found to be positively correlated with tree trunk basal area in Cerrado habitats. Much as in other grasslands and savannas, fire is important in maintaining and shaping the Cerrado's landscape; many plants in the Cerrado are fire-adapted, exhibiting characters like thick corky bark to withstand the heat. A dynamic expansion and contraction between cerrado and Amazonian rainforest has probably occurred historically, with expansion of the Cerrado during glacial periods like the Pleistocene. These processes and the resulting fragmentation in multiple refugia have probably contributed to the high species richness both of the Cerrado and of the Amazonian rainforest. ==Fauna==

(posterior view shown) is found in the open cerrado, but not in adjacent gallery forests Lizard diversity is generally thought to be relatively low in the Cerrado compared to other areas like caatinga or lowland rainforest, although one recent study found 57 species in one cerrado area with the high diversity driven by the availability of open habitat. Ameiva ameiva is among the largest lizards found in the Cerrado and is the most important lizard predator where it is found in the Cerrado. The open nature of the cerrado'' vegetation most likely contributes to the high diversity of snakes. Most birds found in the Cerrado breed there although there are some Austral migrants (breed in temperate South America and winter in the Amazon basin) and Nearctic migrants (breed in temperate North America and winter in the Neotropics) that pass through. Most breeding birds in the Cerrado are found in more closed canopy areas like gallery forests although 27% of the birds breed only in open habitats and 21% breed in either open or closed habitats. The crowned solitary eagle, hyacinth macaw, toco toucan, buff-necked ibis, dwarf tinamou, and Brazilian merganser are examples of birds found in the Cerrado. Gallery forests serve as primary habitat for most of the mammals in the Cerrado, having more water, being protected from fires that sweep the landscape and having a more highly structured habitat. Eleven mammal species are endemic to the Cerrado. The insects of the Cerrado are relatively understudied. A yearlong survey of the Cerrado at one reserve in Brazil found that the orders Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Diptera and Isoptera accounted for 89.5% of all captures. Along with termites, leaf cutter ants are the primary herbivores of the Cerrado and play an important role in consuming and decomposing organic matter, as well as constituting an important food source to many other animal species. The highest diversity of galling insects (insects that build galls) in the world is also found in the Cerrado, with the most species (46) found at the base of the Serra do Cipó in southeast Brazil. File:Red Brocket (Mazama americana) male (28091090800).jpg| File:Tamanduá-bandeira no Parque Nacional da Serra da Canastra.jpg| File:Maned Wolf 6, Beardsley Zoo, 2009-11-06.jpg| File:Seriema (Cariama cristata).jpg| ==History and human population==

The first detailed European account of the Brazilian cerrados was provided by Danish botanist Eugenius Warming (1892) in the book Lagoa Santa, in which he describes the main features of the cerrado vegetation in the state of Minas Gerais. Taking advantage of the sprouting of the herbaceous stratum that follows a burning in the Cerrado, the aboriginal inhabitants of these regions learned to use fire as a tool, to increase the fodder to offer to their domesticated animals. Xavantes, , Karajás, Avá-Canoeiros, Krahôs, Xerentes, Xacriabás were some of the first indigenous peoples occupying different regions in the Cerrado. Many groups among the indigenous were nomads and explored the Cerrado by hunting and collecting. Others practiced coivara agriculture, an itinerant type of slash-and-burn agriculture. The mixing of indigenous, quilombola maroon communities, extractivists, geraizeiros (living in the drier regions), riverbank dwellers and vazanteiros (living on floodplains) shaped a diverse local population that relies heavily on the resources of their environment. Until the mid-1960s, agricultural activities in the Cerrado were very limited, since natural cerrado soils are not fertile enough for crop production, directed mainly at the extensive production of beef cattle for subsistence of the local market. As a result, there has been a significant increase in agricultural and cattle production. On the other hand, the urban pressure and the rapid establishment of agricultural activities in the region have been rapidly reducing the biodiversity of the ecosystems, and the population in the Cerrado region more than doubled from 1970 to 2010, going from 35.8 to 76 million. ==Rivers==

The Cerrado biome is strategic for the water resources of Brazil. The biome contains the headwaters and the largest portion of South American watersheds (the Paraná-Paraguay, Araguaia-Tocantins, and São Francisco river basins) and the upper catchments of large Amazon tributaries, such as the Xingu and Tapajós. During the last four decades, the Cerrado’s river basins have been highly impacted by extreme deforestation, expansion of the agricultural and cattle ranching frontier, construction of dams, and extraction of water for irrigation. == Commercial activity ==

Agriculture The Cerrado was thought challenging for agriculture until researchers at Brazil's agricultural and livestock research agency, Embrapa, discovered that it could be made fit for industrial crops by appropriate additions of phosphorus and lime. In the late 1990s, between 14 million and 16 million tons of lime were being poured on Brazilian fields each year. The quantity rose to 25 million tons in 2003 and 2004, equaling around five tons of lime per hectare. This manipulation of the soil allowed for industrial agriculture to grow exponentially in the area. Researchers also developed tropical varieties of soybeans, until then a temperate crop, and currently, Brazil is the world's main soyabeans exporter due to the boom in animal feed production caused by the global rise in meat demand. Today the Cerrado region provides more than 70% of the beef cattle production in the country, being also a major production center of grains, mainly soya, beans, maize, and rice. Large extensions of the Cerrado are also used for the production of cellulose pulp for the paper industry, with the cultivation of several species of eucalyptus and pines, but as a secondary activity. Coffee produced in the Cerrado is now a major export. During the last 25 years this biome has been increasingly threatened by industrial monoculture farming, particularly soybeans, the unregulated expansion of industrial agriculture, the burning of vegetation for charcoal and the development of dams to provide irrigation are drawing criticisms and have been identified as potential threats to several Brazilian rivers. There is also a strong agribusiness lobby in Brazil and in particular, the production of soybeans in the Cerrado is influenced by large corporations such as ADM, Cargill and Bunge, these latter two directly associated with the mass deforestation of this biome. In the Cerrado/MATOPIBA agricultural frontier, Conservation International Brazil served as an implementing partner for the UNDP–GEF project Taking Deforestation Out of the Soy Supply Chain, intended to reduce deforestation pressures associated with soy expansion and promote more sustainable production at a landscape scale. Charcoal production Charcoal production for Brazil's steel industry is a significant income generating activity in the Cerrado. It is closely interwined with agriculture. When land is cleared for agricultural land use, the tree's trunks and roots are often used in the production of charcoal, financing the clearing. The Brazilian steel industry has traditionally used the trunks and roots from the Cerrado for charcoal, but now that the steel mills in the state of Minas Gerais are among the world's largest, it has taken a much higher toll on the Cerrado. Due to conservation efforts and the diminishing vegetation in the Cerrado, charcoal is increasingly sourced from the eucalyptus plantations. ==Conservation==

Ecological trends and challenges The Cerrado is the second-largest biome in South America and the most biodiverse savanna in the world. It encompasses the Guarani Aquifer and holds the largest underground freshwater reservoirs on the continent. The Cerrado also plays a crucial hydrological role, supplying water to one-third of the Amazon River and supporting several of South America's major river basins. Despite its ecological importance, Brazilian agricultural policies and land-use planning have historically regarded the Cerrado as having low conservation value. As a result, only 1.5% of the biome is protected under federal reserves. Vegetation loss continues at an alarming rate, with projections suggesting that a further 31–34% of the remaining biome could be cleared by 2050 if current trends persist. Recent studies have shown that approximately 19% of the Cerrado, around 17 million hectares, exhibits significant woody plant encroachment. This densification, marked by a 40% increase in wood cover, has led to a reduction in plant diversity by about 30%. One of the key challenges in establishing effective nature reserves in the Cerrado lies in its floristic heterogeneity and complex mosaic of vegetation types, which complicates the selection of representative conservation areas. In Brazil, protected areas are known as conservation units, and those in the Cerrado account for 19% of all units in the country. While a 2017 assessment found that , or 23% of the ecoregion, is in protected areas, these registered conservation units make up roughly of land, which represents about 9% of the total area of the Cerrado. This law established the National System of Nature Conservation Units (SNUC) and defines the concepts for the creation and management of conservation units in Brazil, marking the beginning of their legal regulation. Between 1997 and 2006, a total of 179 conservation units were established in the Cerrado, accounting for almost one third of the entire current network., a branch of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. There are two groups of conservation units in Brazil, namely Integral Protection (IP) and Sustainable Protection (SP). Integral protection units exist to protect nature, and use of their resources is limited to recreation and tourism. Sustainable protection units aim to reconcile the conservation of nature with the sustainable use of its natural resources. In the Cerrado biome, there are currently 241 federally managed conservation units, which amounts to . These conservation units were inscribed by UNESCO in 2001 for two main reasons. Firstly, the units are centrally localized and have varying altitudes, making them robust areas of refuge for species. Secondly, the units excellently represent the biodiversity of the Cerrado biome, with more than 60% of all plant species and almost 80% of all vertebrate species that exist in the region. Many endangered species occur in these units, making them important targets for conservation. A total of 64 conservation units were completely within other units. The management plan establishes a number of guidelines and rules necessary for the management of the conservation unit. This includes the zoning of the area, in which the conservation unit is divided into different sections categorized by their required degrees of protection. In 2015, 85% of all protected areas in the Cerrado, excluding private natural heritage reserves, were environmental protected areas, which are sustainable protection units. Conservation units should be representative of the biome they protect. In 2015, only two thirds of protected areas corresponded to remaining native vegetation in the Cerrado, with the other one third representing deforested areas within different conservation units. By the end of 2025, despite the existence of 706 protected areas in the Cerrado, only about 8% of the biome is effectively protected, and most of these areas cover only a few hectares. Meanwhile, São Paulo, the country’s most economically important state, has very few protected areas, resulting in a current protection scenario that is clearly insufficient. Privately owned land Privately owned land is essential for conservation efforts as the majority of remaining native vegetation in the Cerrado occurs in private properties and farms. In 2019, private lands held 57.9% of the remaining native vegetation in the Cerrado. Brazil’s Forest Code requires land owners to retain 20% of native vegetation as Legal Reserves on their properties in all biomes except the Amazon, where the number is 80%. Legal Reserves in the Cerrado are essential for biodiversity protection, as about 13% of the distribution range of threatened species exist within them. Changes made to the Forest Code in 2012 legally allow almost 40 Mha of extra native vegetation to be cleared on top of the original allowance. There are measures in place to increase compliance, such as the Rural Environmental Registry System (CAR), which is a documentation system of environmental information of millions of rural properties that facilitates their monitoring and management. ==References==