Functional traits of cerrado sensu stricto arbored species and its importance for the maintenance of native communities

Functional traits are morpho-physiological characteristics of species that can significantly influence ecological processes in their natural environment and can be used to form functional groups. Functional groups are species with similar characteristics and functions in communities. The initial objective of the study was to detect patterns in the functional traits of tree species in cerrado sensu stricto. We sought to answer: 1) is it possible to group species into functional groups using leaf and architecture traits, 2) which traits best explained the survival/maintenance of species in their communities. The foliar and architectural functional traits of 32 tree species from cerrado sensu stricto were evaluated. The analyses were able to form four distinct functional groups for cerrado sensu stricto. Group 1 showed trees with higher wood density, dry mass and leaf area and high volume and biomass values. Most species have leaves with low specific leaf area and high leaf area and dry mass. Group 2 had small species with low crown volume and biomass, however, it was the group with the highest specific leaf area and leaf water percentage. Group 3 was formed by species with the lowest contribution of biomass and crown volume in the study, and also showed low values for wood density, leaf area and dry mass, being typically small-sized species. Group 4 showed the highest values for crown volume, biomass and sorghum in the study, configuring the group of species with the largest size of the study, but showed low values for specific leaf area and percentage of water in the leaf.