Capoeira Class System: a proposal of classification system of successional stages of secondary forests for Pará state

Abstract

Brazilian law does not currently define the characteristics that should be used to distinguish different successional stages of second-growth forest. This lack of clarity poses difficulties for licensing the clearance, management and conservation of secondary native vegetation. The aim of this study was to propose an classification system of secondary vegetation by successional stage based on field-work covering three municipalities in Pará, in addition to existing literature. Inventories were made in 128 plots of 0.16 ha per study site and used 18 floristic-structural descriptors. Plots of the three stages were then subjected to a discriminant analysis, which allowed the separation of three stages of succession, based on 16 floristic and structural measures. However, only eight descriptors showed significant discrimination power among the three successional stages. These descriptors were used to develop a classification system termed Capoeira Class (CapClas). CapClass is a system composed of three equations that discriminate the successional stages with more than 70.3% accuracy. This work corroborates the assumption that there are three distinct successional stages with distinct structures, and that floristic-structural descriptors can be used in the implementation of a classification system of secondary vegetation.