Seed rain in a seasonal semideciduous forest at Vicosa, Minas Gerais State, Brazil

(Seed rain in a seasonal semideciduous forest at Vicosa, Minas Gerais State, Brazil). This study aims to evaluate the floristic composition, density and frequency of seeds in 25 traps in a section of seasonal semideciduous forest, as well as classify taxons as to life form, dispersal syndromes, and succession phase of the tree species, and verify floristic similarities between seed rain species and tree species located in the same plots. The work was carried Out from December/2004 to November/2006. Forty three taxons were recognized and Leguminosae was represented by I I species. The dominant life form was arboreal (63.1%), climbers were represented by 28.9% of the sampled species, herbs by 5.3% and shrubs by 2.6%. Mean seed density in the first year was 113.92 seeds.m-2 and 2603.84 seeds.m(-2) in the second year. These differences showed spatial and seasonal heterogeneity of the seed rain. Floristic similarity using Sorensen's index between seed-rain species and tree species from the studied fragment was 32%, a value considered to be low (<= 50%). This result showed that the adjacent arboreal vegetation composition had little influence oil the seed rain.