The IBGE Ecological Reserve ( pt, Reserva Ecológica do IBGE, formerly named as Reserva Ecológica do Roncador (RECOR) ), is a protected area in the
Federal District
A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they e ...
,
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. It has a diverse ecology including various rare or endangered species, and is an important center for research into the ecology of the poorly protected
Cerrado
The ''Cerrado'' (, ) is a vast ecoregion of tropical savanna in eastern Brazil, particularly in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Minas Gerais, and the Federal District. The core areas of the Cerrado biome are t ...
environment. Numerous scientific papers have referred to research conducted in the reserve.
Location
![IBGE Ecological Reserve sketch map](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/IBGE_Ecological_Reserve_sketch_map.svg)
The IBGE Ecological Reserve covers and is south of Brasilia.
It is bounded by the
University of Brasília
The University of Brasília ( pt, Universidade de Brasília, UnB) is a federal public university in Brasília, the capital of Brazil. It was founded in 1960 and has since consistently been named among the top five Brazilian universities and the ...
's experimental farm Fazenda Água Limpa (FAL) to the west and the Estação Ecológica do Jardim Botânico de Brasília (EEJBB) to the north and east.
These form the
Environmental Protection Area of the Gama-Cabeça de Veado District, with of contiguous protected area.
The reserve is a very representative zone of central Brazil, with all the typical aspects of the cerrado.
The terrain consists of a gently sloping plateau divided by stream valleys, and ranges in altitude from to .
It is drained towards the northwest by the Taquara, the Taquara's tributary the Roncador, and the Roncador's tributaries the Escondido, Monjolo and Pitoco.
The area includes
Precambrian
The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the ...
metasedimentary rocks of the Paranoá Group from the
Brasiliano orogeny
Brasiliano orogeny or Brasiliano cycle ( pt, Orogênese Brasiliana and ''Ciclo Brasiliano'') refers to a series of orogenies of Neoproterozoic age exposed chiefly in Brazil but also in other parts of South America. The Brasiliano orogeny is a reg ...
(550 to 900 million years ago), but most of the land is covered by
Tertiary
Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago.
The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...
detrital
laterite
Laterite is both a soil and a rock type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by ...
material.
The reserve is one of the permanent conservation areas of the
Federal District
A federal district is a type of administrative division of a federation, usually under the direct control of a federal government and organized sometimes with a single municipal body. Federal districts often include capital districts, and they e ...
along with
Brasília National Park (Parque Nacional de Brasília), the Estação Ecológica de Águas Emendadas and the Estação Ecológica do Jardim Botânico de Brasília.
It is one of the core areas of the Cerrado Biosphere Reserve created by
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
in the Federal District in 1993.
It is also part of the Federal Government's Central Plateau Environmental Protection Area (Área de Proteção Ambiental - APA do Planalto Central).
Access is restricted to researchers.
History
Until 1956 the area occupied by the reserve had been occupied by cattle herders and subsistence farmers.
The Federal District requisitioned the land that year, and donated it to the
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics
The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics ( pt, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística; IBGE) is the agency responsible for official collection of statistical, geographic, cartographic, geodetic and environmental information ...
(Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística, IBGE) in 1961.
The IBGE created the Reserva Ecológica do Roncador (RECOR) on 22 December 1975 as an ecological reserve for scientific research into the Brazilian Cerrado.
In 1978 the Brazilian Institute for Forest Development (Instituto Brasileiro de Desenvolvimento Florestal, IBDF) recognized the reserve as a permanent conservation area of scientific interest.
The name was changed to the Reserva Ecológica do IBGE, although the acronym RECOR was retained.
Around this time several scientific papers were published on subjects such as insect ecology, tree growth and heavy metal pollution in the reserve.
The IBGE created a fire brigade, a specialized library and administrative buildings.
A weather station was established in 1979–80, and a nursery was started for studies on plant propagation.
The reserve has laboratories for animal and plant ecology.
By the mid 1980s the reserve was one of main areas of research into the cerrado in the Federal District.
RECOR continues to be an extremely active center of research.
The Cerrado is the richest
savanna
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
ecosystem in the world.
Only 2.2% is fully protected in Brazil. As of 2009 the
biome
A biome () is a biogeographical unit consisting of a biological community that has formed in response to the physical environment in which they are found and a shared regional climate. Biomes may span more than one continent. Biome is a broader ...
was being destroyed at about annually, so the need to document the ecology is urgent.
Researchers have studied plants, fish, birds, mammals and insects of the cerrado, and the impact of fire.
As of 2011 more than 1,000 scientific works had used research from the reserve, including 177 doctoral dissertations and theses.
Climate and ecology
There is a rainy season from September/October until April/May, and a dry season from May to September.
Average annual rainfall is .
The average annual temperature is , with average range from in June/July to in September/October, after which cloud cover reduces the amount of sunshine.
There are two distinct types of vegetation zone, one covering the well-drained interfluvial areas and the other in the wetter and more fertile areas along the watercourses.
The gallery forests cover about and are rich in species and play an important role in protecting water and wildlife.
As of 2004 1,829 species of vascular plant had been collected in the IBGE Ecological Reserve, including 1,503 native species and 326 exotic species.
The phanerogamic vegetation has been called "the most diverse arboreal flora of Central Brazil."
18 species of
liverworts
The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of ge ...
have been collected, from eight families.
The reserve has native grasses such as Tristachya leiostachya, Olyra ciliatifolia and Olyra taquara and several species of micro-orchid.
A number of new species of amphibians and reptiles have been identified on the reserve.
In total 101 species of
herpetofauna
Herpetology (from Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, toads, salamanders, newts, and caecilians (gymnophiona)) and rept ...
have been found including 37 frogs, 20 lizards and 37 snakes.
This may well understate the diversity, particularly of snakes.
There are more than 250 species of birds.
Two groups of migratory birds frequent the reserve, "winter species" and "spring species", both of which arrive during periods when insects are abundant so food is plentiful.
The reserve has diverse wildlife.
Some of these are endangered, such as the
giant anteater
The giant anteater (''Myrmecophaga tridactyla'') is an insectivorous mammal native to Central and South America. It is one of four living species of anteaters, of which it is the largest member. The only extant member of the genus ''Myrmecopha ...
, the
maned wolf
The maned wolf (''Chrysocyon brachyurus'') is a large canine of South America. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and Paraguay, and is almost extinct in Uruguay. Its markings resemble those of foxes, but it is neither a fox nor a w ...
and the
pampas deer
The Pampas deer (''Ozotoceros bezoarticus'') is a species of deer that live in the grasslands of South America at low elevations.Geist, Valerius. Deer of the world their evolution, behaviour, and ecology'. Mechanicsburg, Pa: Stackpole Books, 1998 ...
.
Other rare or endangered species include
Brasília tapaculo
The Brasília tapaculo (''Scytalopus novacapitalis'') is a species of bird in the family Rhinocryptidae. It is endemic to southern Brazil.
Taxonomy and systematics
The Brasilia tapaculo is most closely related to the Planalto tapaculo (''Sc ...
, a bird,
Brasilia lyrefin, a fish, and
bush dog
The bush dog (''Speothos venaticus'') is a canine found in Central and South America. In spite of its extensive range, it is very rare in most areas except in Suriname, Guyana and Peru; it was first identified by Peter Wilhelm Lund from fossils ...
, a canid.
File:Corpo de Bombeiros intensifica combate a incêndios florestais2.jpg, Firefighters
File:Flickr - João de Deus Medeiros - Voyria aphylla.jpg, Voyria aphylla - Gentianaceae
File:Myrmecophaga tridactyla in Pantanal.jpg, Giant anteater
The giant anteater (''Myrmecophaga tridactyla'') is an insectivorous mammal native to Central and South America. It is one of four living species of anteaters, of which it is the largest member. The only extant member of the genus ''Myrmecopha ...
File:Scitalopus novacapitalis - Brasilia Tapaculo.JPG, Brasília tapaculo
The Brasília tapaculo (''Scytalopus novacapitalis'') is a species of bird in the family Rhinocryptidae. It is endemic to southern Brazil.
Taxonomy and systematics
The Brasilia tapaculo is most closely related to the Planalto tapaculo (''Sc ...
Notes
Sources
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{{authority control
Protected areas established in 1975
Protected areas of Federal District (Brazil)
Ecological reserves of Brazil
1975 establishments in Brazil