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Abstract The Program for Biodiversity Research (PPBio) is an innovative program designed to integrate all biodiversity research stakeholders. Operating since 2004, it has installed long-term ecological research sites throughout Brazil and its logic has been applied in some other southern-hemisphere countries. The program supports all aspects of research necessary to understand biodiversity and the processes that affect it. There are presently 161 sampling sites (see some of them at Supplementary Appendix), most of which use a standardized methodology that allows comparisons across biomes and through time. To date, there are about 1200 publications associated with PPBio that cover topics ranging from natural history to genetics and species distributions. Most of the field data and metadata are available through PPBio web sites or DataONE. Metadata is available for researchers that intend to explore the different faces of Brazilian biodiversity spatio-temporal variation, as well as for managers intending to improve conservation strategies. The Program also fostered, directly and indirectly, local technical capacity building, and supported the training of hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students. The main challenge is maintaining the long-term funding necessary to understand biodiversity patterns and processes under pressure from global environmental changes.

ABSTRACTTo better understand the role that flooding plays in shaping plant communities of native floodable grasslands of the Pantanal and to characterize the spatial distribution of plants, we present the results of a survey of soil seed and spore banks using the seedling emergence method. We hypothesized that terrain subjected to the deepest and longest flooding should have higher propagule abundance and richness. The species composition and distribution of seeds and spores in the soil were assessed at five sites using three sampling positions at each according to inundation intensity. In each sample position 2cm-thick soil samples were collected in quadrats to a depth of 10cm. Litter was also collected as an independent layer. Sample monitoring in the greenhouse resulted in the emergence of 5489 seedlings, or 6353 propagules.m-2. Both the litter layer and the deepest soil layer had low abundances. A total of forty-four morphospecies (16 families) were recorded. Both seedling abundance and species richness were concentrated in the more floodable center sections. Isoetes pedersenii, Eleocharis minima, Sagittaria guayanensis, Rotala mexicana, Eleocharis plicarhachis, and Panicum laxum were the most abundant species. The species composition and spatial distribution of the propagule bank suggests that flooding plays a crucial role in seasonal vegetation dynamics in Pantanal wetlands, mediated by the ability of the soil to host seeds and spores during dry season.

Index code	Element
ti	article title
au	author
kw	article keywords
subject	subject (title words, abstract and keywords)
ab	abstract
ta	journal short title (e.g. Cad. Saúde Pública)
journal_title	journal full title (e.g. Cadernos de Saúde Pública)
la	publication language code (e.g. pt - Portuguese, es - Spanish)
type	document type
pid	publication identifier
publication_year	publication year of publication
sponsor	sponsor
aff_country	country code of the author's affiliation
aff_institution	author affiliation institution
volume	article volume
issue	article issue
elocation	elocation
doi	DOI number
issn	journal ISSN
in	SciELO colection code (e.g. scl - Brasil, col - Colômbia)
use_license	article usage license code

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