Mata do Paraíso Research Center (CPMP) is the core area of the largest Lower Montane Semideciduous Atlantic Forest fragment in Viçosa region, southeastern State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. As a research center belonging to the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV), it has been an important site for the fieldwork of undergraduate monographs, Master and Doctorate Thesis, and research conducted by professors, mostly from the Animal Biology, Forestry and Plant Biology Departments. Those researches have been conducted along the existent trails randomly distributed in the forest or along new trails opened according to the research needs or the scientists' convenience. This management system imposes difficulties or even prevents the proper mapping of sampling locations, the temporal and spatial monitoring of animal and plant communities, and the repeatability of experiments. This paper describes a recently opened 40 ha trail grid system at the CPMP. The grid is composed by five parallel 1,000 m trails and eleven 400 m trails encompassing 40 squares of one hectare. The CPMP is now one of the few Brazilian forest research stations with a trail grid system, which allows scientists to conduct research in many different areas. This work highlights the urgency of trail maintenance and its proper, permanent marking, as well as its georeferencing and its expansion to encompass 100 hectares in order to meet international standard among other research stations in the Neotropics.
Atlantic Forest; ecology; long-term plots; Zona da Mata
