Private environmental consultancy reveals five genera and ten species of angiosperms new to Rio Grande do Norte state , northeastern Brazil

New occurrences of 10 species of angiosperms from Rio Grande do Norte state are reported. These data were collected by an environmental consultancy prior to the establishment of a wind farm. These records demonstrate the presence of knowledge gaps in the Caatinga flora of the state and show how an environmental consultancy can positively contribute towards the documentation of biodiversity in areas prior to their modification by human activities. In particular, at a time when the Brazilian Congress is discussing the elimination of environmental studies for licensing new developments, these new occurrence data highlight the importance of environmental studies.


Introduction
Brazil is a megadiverse country and has an environmental law system, which may be not fully effective in conservation (see Drummond and Barros-Platiau 2006).Many of these laws are being subject to polemic reviews in the last few years.One example is the recent change in the Brazilian Forest Code of 1965 (Garcia et al. 2016, Souza et al. 2012), which was criticized by environmental researchers.Currently, the PEC (Proposta de Emenda à Constituição; in English, Constitutional Amendment Proposal) 65/2012 (Brasil 2016b) and the PL (Projeto de Lei; Law Project) 3729/2004 (Brasil 2016a) are about to be approved by the Brazilian Congress.These involve polemic changes such as the elimination of environmental studies for licensing development ventures, which threatens the functionality and effectiveness of environmental laws.In this study, we (E.O.Moura, V.F.Sousa, and A.S. Soares) conducted a rapid floristic inventory in an area of dry woodland in Rio Grande do Norte, northeastern Brazil, as part of a private environmental consultancy study for the licensing of a wind farm project.Field and laboratory work allow us to identify unreported species for Rio Grande do Norte flora.
Environmental consultants may fail to accurately depict the floristic composition of an area.Generally, such studies are based on common names or by recognition of species by locals (not trained botanists), identifications using sterile specimens, and secondary bibliographic data.Versieux et al. (2011) suggested that the environmental agencies in Brazil should consider and demand more detailed inventories prior to the development of new ventures; rapid inventories may not find the local floristic variation, which might occur over short distances, and thus overlook the local flora.
Nonetheless, beyond producing reports for bureaucratic agencies and their permitting purposes, environmental consultancies can contribute to floristic knowledge and help grow herbaria collections when studies are well conducted.
The Caatinga is the only exclusively Brazilian phytogeographic domain.It occupies approximately 11% of the national territory and has great potential for the conservation of ecosystem services, for natural resources, and for bioprospecting (Brasil 2013).However, recent studies show that this domain is still floristically poorly known (e.g.Abílio 2010, Moro et al. 2014).
The Seridó region is located in the so-called Depressão Sertaneja Setentrional, an ecoregion of the Caatinga domain shared by the states of Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte.In the Seridó, the vegetation is dominated by herbaceous plants, and the soil is superficial and susceptible to erosion (Velloso et al. 2002).This region is 1 of 4 centers of desertification in Brazil and one of the most degraded ecoregions of the Caatinga domain (Sampaio et al. 2003, Velloso et al. 2002).
Few studies describe the flora of Rio Grande do Norte.Some recent publications include new species or new occurrences (Araújo and Alves 2013, Terra-Araujo and Alves 2013, Lourenço et al. 2013, Versieux et al. 2013, Magalhães et al. 2014, Ribeiro et al. 2015, Soares et al. 2017, Versieux et al. 2017), but there is a need to improve the floristic knowledge in the whole state, and the botanical exploration of under-collected areas should be a priority.We contribute to the documentation of biodiversity in Rio Grande do Norte by adding new records of angiosperms.Our new data illustrate the importance of the environmental licensing process, in particular the gathering of biodiversity data by qualified professionals.

Methods
The Serra das Queimadas is a mountain in the municipalities of Equador (06°56ʹ S, 036°43ʹ W) and Parelhas (06°41ʹ S, 036°39ʹ W), in the Seridó Oriental microregion of Rio Grande do Norte.The mountain is in the Caatinga phytogeographical domain and has a BSh climate, according to Köppen climate classification (Peel et al. 2007).Mining and wind farms activities are important to the economy and environment in the region.Fieldwork was conducted in August 2015, in areas of Caatinga vegetation.
The specimens collected were added to the UFRN Herbarium (acronym according to Thiers 2018), Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte.Photographs are available in the online platform REFLORA (http:// ufrn.jbrj.gov.br).We compared our specimens with other herbarium specimens and had our identifications confirmed by various specialists (see Acknowledgements).Geographic distributions were verified using specific references, experts in the taxa, and the Flora do Brasil 2020Brasil (2017)).The maps were made using QGIS (ver. 2.14.6).
Dasyphyllum sprengelianum was originally described by Gardner (1847) as Flotovia sprengeliana from specimens from southeastern Brazil.Its distribution ranges from Bolivia, Paraguay to Brazil (Saavedra 2011).In Brazil, it is recorded from Bahia, Ceará, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rondônia, Tocantins, Distrito Federal, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Minas Gerais and São Paulo (Saavedra 2015).In Rio Grande do Norte, Dasyphyllum sprengelianum was collected on shrubby Caatinga vegetation, growing in rocky soils.This species belongs to the subgenus Dasyphyllum section Macrocephala by having its 3-to 5-veined leaves from the base and anthers with a bilobed apical appendage.It resembles D. donianum (Gardner) Cabrera due to its subcoriaceous , glabrous, and shortly petiolate leaves, and by its bracts with hairy margins and densely villous abaxial surface.Dasyphyllum sprengelianum differs from D. donianum by the shorter spines on the branches (5-18 mm vs 20 mm long), the leaf blade acuminate at apex (vs obtuse and mucronate), and inner involucral bracts lanceolate (vs oblong-lanceolate).
Combretum monetaria is endemic to Brazil, recorded for the states of Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, and Goiás (Marquete and Loiola 2015) and growing in Caatinga or transitional areas, in rocky, sandy, or sandy-loamy soils (Loiola and Sales 1996).It is easily recognized by the erect shrubby or small tree habit, narrowly linear to linear bracteoles, the flowers with spatulate or obovate petals, and elliptic to widely elliptic fruits.Specimens examined.Brazil.Rio Grande do Norte.Equador: Serra das Queimadas, área para instalação do Complexo Eólico Santapape, 06°54′43″ S, 036°42′58″ W, fr., 13 August 2015, Sousa V.F. 17 et al. (UFRN 19927); Parelhas: Área para instalação do Complexo Eólico Santapape, 06°42′25″ S, 036°38′33″ W, fr., 18 August 2015, Sousa V.F. 55 et al. (UFRN 19965); Tenente Laurentino Cruz: trilha saindo do assentamento indo à São Vicente, 06°11′26″ S, 036°43′06″ Endemic to Brazil, Euphorbia phosphorea is recorded for Bahia, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Sergipe, and Minas Gerais (Steinmann et al. 2016).It is easily recognized in the field by the shrubby habit with costate cladodes; presence of fascicles of cyathia; pistillate flowers presenting 5 glands with a pair of truncate and corniculate appendages at the extremities.This is the first record of xeromorphic species of Euphorbiaceae for Rio Grande do Norte, it was collected as rupicolous on rocky outcrops in Caatinga.This species inhabits in Caatinga vegetation where it usually grows in deciduous forests or thorny scrubs over exposed rocky soils, gravelly sandy substrates, or on inselbergs (Riina et al. 2015).These 10 newly recorded species exemplify the importance of the environmental licensing process for documenting local and regional biodiversity.In contrast, the law project 3729/2004 and the Constitutional Amendment Proposal 65/2012 is a simplification and weakening of environmental laws, which will allow the devastation of natural areas caused by the expansion of agricultural areas, for example.Agriculture is the main driver of land conversion (Magrin et al. 2014) and has been the responsible for the loss of many ecosystems in the Cerrado domain (Overbeck 2015).

Specimens
Our results contribute to the knowledge of the flora of Brazil and in particular of Rio Grande do Norte; these data help improve the distributional maps of 10 species.Additionally, these new records were gathered as part of an environmental consultancy prior to the establishment of a wind farm, which highlights the importance of accurate fieldwork and identifications.When done by specialized environmental consultants, such careful work is expected to guide the decisions of environmental agencies during the licensing.While we cannot assure the future of these species or the populations that we recently documented, in the face of changes to environmental laws by members of Congress, even such notice of novel occurrence may be lacking in the near future.It is also worthwhile to note that professional work of environmental consultants can contribute to the documentation of the flora of an area, but this also depends on well-curated herbarium collections, which can increase the detail of environmental studies and facilitate the consultation of professionals.
Some of the species presented here had already existed in the UFRN herbarium.However, as discussed by Versieux et al. (2017), small herbaria collections tend to receive less specialist visitors and unless the complete collection has been digitalized or duplicates are donated to specialists in other herbaria, it is difficult to keep identifications up-to-date.The time-lag between the collection of specimens and the naming of new plant species was discussed by Fontaine et al. (2012), but the same process may affect any plant inventory or checklist; that is, specimens already deposited in herbaria but may take years before they are identified.Here, we call attention to specialists for additional new occurrences that could not be verified in the present work.Such potential new occurrences have been found in databases but have not been confirmed by the examination of herbarium specimens and are cited here only to call specialist's attention, since such occurrence are still missing in the Flora of Brazil 2020 website.One might argue that publicizing new occurrence in a case like ours does not assure species conservation, because land use changes are expected to take place quickly in the habitat.However, the specimen itself has value as a testimony of the original vegetation and as source of genetic material and other applications (Funk 2003).The distributional pattern seen here for the species documented here show broad occurrences in other neighboring states, and we believe that these species may be found in other Caatinga areas of Rio Grande do Norte with increased sampling.Although privately funded floristic inventories may be done quickly and overlook distinctions in floristic compositions, which can lead to the loss of relevant data (Versieux et al. 2011), our results show otherwise.Rapid floristic inventories may help increase the floristic knowledge of a given area, aid in conservation decisions, and provide more precise information on rare species if the work is careful and collection is done properly and identifications verified by experts or compared with herbarium specimens.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Nearest occurrences of the new records from Rio Grande do Norte state, northeastern Brazil.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Nearest occurrences of the new records from Rio Grande do Norte state, northeastern Brazil.
(Queiroz 2015)l.Rio Grande do Norte: Equador: Serra das Queimadas, área de extração de Caulim e para instalação do Complexo Eólico Santapape, 06°55′10″ S,036°43′25″ W, 12 July 2015, Moura E.O.  et al. 404 (UFRN 19551); Monte das Gameleiras: afloramento às margens daRN 269, 21 December 2015, Moura  E.O. et al. 461 (UFRN 20398).Camptosema pedicellatum from specimens of northeastern Brazil, state of Ceará.Bionia pedicellata is endemic to northeastern Brazil and recorded for Bahia, Ceará, Pernambuco, and Piauí(Queiroz 2015).In Rio Grande do Norte, it was found in open Caatinga vegetation, growing in rocky soils.It is easily recognized in the field by its low shrubby habit, simple leaves with obtuse base and velutinous abaxial surface, by the dark red petals, and by the velutinous indumentum of its legumes.Our new data demonstrate the importance of additional studies to better document the Caatinga flora of Rio Grande do Norte, as well as the importance of accurate fieldwork during environmental consultancy.Although the Rio Grande do Norte has currently 1,222 cataloged species, neighboring states with similar areas and phytophysiognomies have a considerably higher number of recorded species (e.g.Paraíba, with 1,837 species of angiosperms)(BFG 2015).To illustrate this, 7 species of this study were already known from Paraíba or Ceará, suggesting that many taxa cited for neighboring states are likely for Rio Grande do Norte but not yet collected.Of the 10 new records, Bionia pedicellata, Euphorbia phosphorea, Combretum monetaria, and Harpochilus neesianus present a distributional pattern centered in northeastern Brazil, mainly in the Caatinga domain(BFG  2015).Forsteronia pubescens, Dasyphyllum sprengelianum, Combretum hilarianum, and Gomphrena vaga are Neotropical.The genus Harpochilus is endemic to Brazil and is represented by 2 shrub species, H. neesianus, restricted to the Caatinga and H. phaeocarpus Nees, only found in the Atlantic Forest.Almost all species have a shrubby habit, indicating that the study area is dominated by the shrubby Caatinga phytophysiognomy. Discussion