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Motivation: Leaf traits represent an important component of plant functional strategies, and those related to carbon fixation and nutrient acquisition form the leaf economics spectrum. However, observations of functional leaf traits are underrepresented in tropical regions in comparison with those in temperate areas. Brazil, a country with continental scale and vast biodiversity is a timely example, where many biomes are impacted by human activities and climate change. However, leaf traits relevant to understand vegetation responses to these impacts remain poorly quantified for many species found in the country. We compiled an extensive data set of four functional leaf traits for native woody species occurring in the Brazilian territory. In addition to trait observations, sampling dates and geo‐references were compiled and climatic parameters and soil properties of each sampling site were extracted from several databases. Main types of variables contained: The LT‐Brazil data set contains 3,479, 1,216, 775 and 775 clean observations of leaf mass per area, leaf nitrogen (N) concentration per unit mass, leaf phosphorus (P) concentration per unit mass, and leaf N : P ratio, respectively, from native woody species, encompassing information of biome, vegetation, taxonomic data, geographical coordinates, climatic parameters, as well as soil properties. Spatial location and grain: We compiled trait observations from 223 sites under native vegetation distributed in all main biomes (i.e., Amazônia, Caatinga, Cerrado, Mata Atlântica, Pampa and Pantanal) across the Brazilian territory. Time period and grain: The data represent information published and/or sampled during the last 25 years. Major taxa and level of measurement: Our compilation was focused on trait data observed for native woody species, excluding monocots, palm trees, herbs, and hemiparasitic plants. Thus, 108, 478 and 1,321 botanical families, genera and species were included, covering c. 9% of the woody angiosperm flora of Brazil. Software format: Data are provided as comma‐separated value (.csv) files. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private conservation lands are essential for protecting biodiversity, but few national‐level studies have assessed their coverage and the legal frameworks that support them. Here, we review the legal mechanisms enabling conservation on private lands in Brazil and evaluate these lands' potential to reinforce the national protected area system. We found that conserving native vegetation on private lands is the most important mechanism to protect biodiversity in five out of the six Brazilian biomes. Because Brazil has a law that mandates landowners to set aside conservation areas, remnants of native vegetation were protected rather than converted to other land uses in areas of old economic frontiers. These remnants can be the cornerstones of effective regional conservation systems. Still, upgrading these remnants to privately protected areas and integrating these privately protected areas into the national protected area system remains a challenge. We suggest that the Brazilian experience provides important lessons on how other countries can design innovative policies to recognize and expand private land conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this study was to shed greater light on the characteristics and multifaceted potential of oil extracts from kernels of Bertholletia excelsa (Brazil nut), seeds of the Plukenetia species and Caryocar species. These are but a few of the multitude of the plant species found in the Amazon and Brazil's Cerrado biomes. They have many substantial organoleptic, nutritional, and functional properties that are comparable or exceed better known oils, and they manifest health benefits and prospective economic opportunities as an oil source for foods, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. It is also hoped that this study gives rise to further research that may be beneficial to the industry and improve the local economies where these raw materials are found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim was to test whether species distribution models (SDMs) can reproduce major macroecological patterns in a species‐rich, tropical region and provide recommendations for using SDMs in areas with sparse biotic inventory data. Location: North‐east Brazil, including Minas Gerais. Time period: Present. Major taxa studied: Flowering plants. Methods: Species composition estimates derived from stacked SDMs (s‐SDMs) were compared with data from 1,506 inventories of 933 woody plant species from north‐east Brazil. Both datasets were used in hierarchical clustering analyses to delimit floristic units that correspond to biomes. The ability of s‐SDMs to predict the identity, functional composition and floristic composition of biomes was compared across geographical and environmental space. Results: The s‐SDMs and inventory data both resolved four major biomes that largely corresponded in terms of their distribution, floristics and function. The s‐SDMs proved excellent at identifying broad‐scale biomes and their function, but misassigned many individual sites in complex savanna–forest mosaics. Main conclusions: Our results show that s‐SDMs have a unique role to play in describing macroecological patterns in areas lacking inventory data and for poorly known taxa. s‐SDMs accurately predict floristic and functional macroecological patterns but struggle in areas where non‐climatic factors, such as fire or soil, play key roles in governing distributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our aims were to quantify and map the plant ecoregions of the Atlantic Forest, a biodiversity hotspot that covers ca 150 million ha in eastern South America. We used a data set on the distribution of 4378 shrub and tree species across 711 localities. Plant ecoregions were identified using analyses of species turnover for both species occurrences and relative abundances. We interpolated NMDS axes of compositional variation over the entire the Atlantic Forest extent, and then classified the compositional dissimilarity according to the number of biogeographical ecoregions previously identified through K‐means analyses. We assessed the ability of environmental, historical vegetation stability and the current human footprint to explain the occurrence of the identified ecoregions through multinomial logistic regression models. We identified 21 spatially cohesive occurrence and 14 abundance ecoregions. Aridity, soil and historical biome stability were retained in the best model explaining both occurrence and abundance ecoregions. Broad compositional zones were identified through UPGMA cluster analysis of ecoregions, and formed north and south compositional blocks. Our work confirms the existence of a broad north–south divide within the Atlantic Forest, previously suggested based on climatic and amphibious data. Differences between the occurrence and abundance maps suggest the location of transition zones to neighbouring domains and endemism centres. Due to the aggregate nature of our analyses, site‐level disturbance degree was not considered, implying that human impacts could be broader then we could detect. There was limited overlap between our results and previous Atlantic Forest regionalization efforts, indicating that multi‐taxa, physiognomic and environmental regionalization schemes based on expert opinion or vegetation maps are poor proxies for compositional ecoregions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]