Understorey vegetation gradient in a Eucalyptus grandis plantation between a savanna and a semideciduous forest

New Zealand Journal of Forestry Science

Table 2 Coefficient of determination (R ² ) of linear and quadratic regressions between the response variables and distance from cerrado edge along the transects

Response variable	Linear R²	Quadratic R²
Number of species	0.36**	0.38
Fisher’s alpha diversity index	< 0.01	0.28*
Shannon H index	0.01	0.35**
Pielou Evenness index	0.20*	0.41*
PD	0.23*	0.25
PD rate	0.41**	0.43
Number of individuals	0.37**	0.55*
Mean height	0.03	0.41**
SD of height	0.18	0.42*
CV of height	0.23*	0.35
Wind-dispersed individuals	0.01	0.28*
Self-dispersed individuals	0.21*	0.22
Animal-dispersed individuals	0.21*	0.35
Wind-dispersed species	<0.01	<0.01
Self-dispersed species	<0.01	0.02
Animal-dispersed species	<0.01	0.01
Abundance of Schefflera vinosa	0.68***	0.78*
Abundance of Ocotea pulchella	0.19*	0.27
Abundance of Phyllanthus acuminatus	0.04	0.33*
Abundance of Myrcia lingua	0.17	0.17
Abundance of Solanum paniculatum	0.09	0.09
Abundance of Myrsine coriacea	0.19*	0.43*
Abundance of Myrsine umbellata	0.33**	0.48*

For the variables related to vegetation height, we removed a single outlier, located at 322.5 m from the cerrado edge. We chose to remove this outlier because this plot was partially occupied by the invasive fern Pteridium esculentum arachnoideum, which may have affected the size structure of the plot by reducing the number of plants in the smaller size classes. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001.