Asteraceae of Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto, Quirinópolis, Goiás, Brazil

Abstract A floristic inventory and a taxonomic treatment of Asteraceae from Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto in the state of Goiás are provided. Collections were carried out from July 2017 to December 2018 in a fragment of cerrado sensu stricto with transition to cerrado rupestre (rocky cerrado), for a total of 38 expeditions covering all seasons. Taxonomic treatment of the resulting specimens includes identification keys, diagnoses and descriptions, conservation status, endemism and examined material. A total of 59 species were found, belonging to 32 genera and 10 tribes. The predominant genera were Lessingianthus (8 spp.) and Chromolaena (5 spp.) while the predominant tribes were Vernonieae (19 spp.), Eupatorieae (13 spp.) and Heliantheae (7 spp.). The richness pattern for tribes was the same as recorded in other floristic inventories in the Cerrado domain, especially cerrado sensu stricto. Twenty-one of the species (35.6%) are restricted to Brazil while only Isostigma resupinatum is restricted to the state of Goiás. Conyza primulifolia, Lepidaploa cuiabensis and Lepidaploa sororia were new occurrences for the state.


Introduction
Asteraceae is a monophyletic clade supported by several molecular and morphological synapomorphies (Mandel et al. 2019;Susanna et al. 2020), such as the presence of a head-type inflorescence, five fused anthers and cypsela-type fruit, which usually have a modified calyx called a pappus (Roque et al. 2017).
The classification of Asteraceae has changed over time, with the most recent accepted classification recognizing 16 subfamilies and 50 tribes (Susanna et al. 2020).The family has Rodriguésia 74: e00732022.2023 a cosmopolitan geographic distribution and is one of the largest angiosperm families with approximately 1,600 genera and 25,000-35,000 species (Funk et al. 2009;Panero & Crozier 2016;Mandel et al. 2019;Cheek et al. 2020).
G i v e n t h a t s p e c i e s o f A s t e r a c e a e predominates open environments and on high slopes (Mandel et al. 2019) places with these features can be expected to have significant diversity.The Cerrado, for example, occurs in the Brazilian central plateau, where the elevation can nearly 3,000 meters and 68% of the domain is covered by savannas and grasslands (Sano et al. 2007).
T h e C e r r a d o i s t h e p r e d o m i n a n t phytogeographic domain in Goiás.However, only 10,170,172 hectares (29.89%) of natural area remain in the state and about 21,483,737 hectares (63.15%) are destined to farming (MapBiomas 2022).The current reduction of Cerrado in Brazil has been associated with fires and livestock, which alter climatic conditions, such as increased temperatures and reduced rainfall (Santos et al. 2021).
The Cerrado is internationally regarded as a biodiversity hotspot, which are environments with high endemism, diversity, and habitat loss (Mittermeier et al. 2004(Mittermeier et al. , 2011)).The loss of the natural habitats of biodiversity hotspots can take several species to extinction due the high rate of endemism (Myers et al. 2000;Joppa et al. 2011;Pimm & Joppa 2014;Strassburg et al. 2017).According Strassburg et al. (2017), deforestation of the Cerrado will drive about 480 endemic species to extinction by 2050.
Estimates indicate that more species exist than have been described (Pimm & Joppa 2015;Lughadha et al. 2016), and thus it is probable that unknown species are being lost (Joppa et al. 2011).Thus, more research is needed to discover and document species in hotspots, considering the threats they face and the significant biodiversity they harbor.
Asteraceae has been studied within the state of Goiás and taxonomic treatments have been produced.However, the treatments published to date for the family only address tribes and genera.There has been no taxonomic treatment involving all the species of Asteraceae found in a floristic inventory.
Therefore, the aim of this study was to perform a floristic inventory and a taxonomic treatment of Asteraceae found in a fragment of cerrado sensu stricto with transition to cerrado rupestre (rocky cerrado) in southern Goiás.

Material and Methods
The floristic inventory was carried out in the Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto (SCRP), located 6.5 km from the urban area of the municipality of Quirinópolis in southern Goiás, Brazil (Fig. 1).According to the Köppen classification, the climate of the region is of the AW-type with two welldefined seasons: a dry season in winter and wet season in summer (Galinkin 2003).The average annual temperature is 21 ºC, with little variation in monthly average, and average annual rainfall is approximately 1,400 mm, with November to April being the months with highest averages (Galinkin 2003).
The Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto is located at 18°17'10.00"Sand 50°42'57.00"Wand has elevations ranging 670-800 meters above sea level (Google Earth 2022).The most prevalent phytophysiognomy is cerrado sensu stricto, which transitions to a narrow area of cerrado rupestre on hillsides or to gallery forest, wet dirty fields and "vereda".
The original vegetation has been suppressed and altered by pasture or monocultures.Anthropic activities have been the main cause of landscape modification in SCRP.Currently, the expansion of sugarcane production in the region has resulted in the installation of asphalt roads to facilitate truck traffic that transports the sugarcane to industries.This asphalting also facilitated access for the population, increasing visitations and, consequently, increasing the amount of trash and disturbance.
The floristic inventory was performed in a 55. 4-hectare fragment covered by cerrado sensu stricto and cerrado rupestre.The fragment was divided into two areas to facilitate collections: Area 1 (A1) of approximately 31.3 hectares and Area 2 (A2) of approximately 21.2 hectares (Google Earth 2022) (Fig. 1).A total of 38 expeditions (2-3 expeditions by month) involving the method of non-systematized walking proposed by Filgueiras et al. (1994) were undertaken from July 2017 to December 2018.
The taxonomic treatment includes identification keys, descriptions, and diagnoses, conservation status, endemism and examined material.Descriptions for tribes were based just on studied species and diagnoses for species were systematized only for the same genus.
Twenty-one species (35.6%) are restricted to Brazil: six of Eupatorieae, five of Vernonieae, four of Heliantheae, two each of Coreopsideae and Neurolaeneae, and one each of Astereae (Baccharis rivularis Gardner) and Tageteae (Pectis gardneri Baker).The recently described Isostigma resupinatum V.R.Bueno, I.L.Morais & J.N.Nakaj is the only species restricted to the region of Quirinópolis and Rio Verde municipalities in southern state of Goiás (Bueno et al. 2019).Rodriguésia 74: e00732022.2023 The species were classified as 24 subshrubs, 18 shrubs, 13 herbs, three vines and one tree (Piptocarpha rotundifolia Baker).Fifty-three (90%) of the species have not been evaluated for conservation status by CNCFlora and the IUCN Red List.Of the evaluated species, only one is categorized as Vulnerable (V) (Aldama goyazii E.E.Schill.& Panero) and five as Least Concern (LC), of which three are restricted to Brazil: Calea lantanoides Gardner, Lepidaploa aurea (Mart.ex DC.) H.Rob., and Stomatantes dentatus (Gardner) H.Rob. Bueno et al. (2019) indicated that Isostigma resupinatum is Endangered (EN).
The fact that 90% of the species have not been evaluated for conservation status highlights the need for more studies, as such categorization is extremely important for conservation of species and of the natural environment.
Lepidaploa cuiabensis (Baker) H.Rob. and L. sororia (DC.)H.Rob. are new occurrence records for the state of Goiás, both being recorded only in the Cerrado domain.Conyza primulifolia (Lam.)Cuatrec.& Lourteig is also a new occurrence for the state, but its distribution is not restricted to the Cerrado domain and includes the Atlantic Forest.Gynomonoecious subshrubs, leaves rosulate, obovate to oblanceolate, 1.9-7.5 × 0.2-1.5 cm, pubescent, disciform heads, florets yellow, cypselae setose.New record from Goiás.

Calea reticulata
Herbs, leaves lanceolate to elliptical, discolor, capitulescence umfeliform, style branches clavate, cypselae pubescent.Unknown endemism.This work contributes to documenting the richness, endemism, distribution and conservation status of species of Asteraceae that occur on SCRP, a remaining region of the Cerrado that is undergoing degradation due anthropic influence.
The results indicate that SCRP shelters a considerable diversity of Asteraceae.Three of the found species are new records for the state of Goiás, and one, the recently discovered Isostigma resupinatum, is Endangered and restricted to Goiás.
Providences should be taken to help mitigate the anthropic disturbances on SCRP.Additionally, more research could be undertaken to further expand knowledge of the plant diversity of SCRP, including the discovery of new species and new occurrences for the region.Such information would be important to press public authorities to protect natural areas.
A gap in knowledge regarding conservation status was found for Asteraceae, with 90% of the collected species having not been evaluated for threat.Considering the present sixth mass extinction, determination of the threat level of species becomes vital to facilitate their protection.
Floristic inventories and taxonomic treatments help to better understand local biodiversity.Accurate identifications are an indispensable part of any biodiversity study, but especially species lists, which will come to compose databases.The taxonomic treatment presented here included identification keys, diagnoses and descriptions and photographs to help to recognize and differentiate species of Asteraceae on the Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto.This research will also be important to future inventories of local floras by aiding in the identification of species of Asteraceae.

Figure 1
Figure 1 -a-c.Site selected for floristic inventory -a.Brazil country; b.Goiás state showing Quirinópolis municipality; c.Fragment at Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto, A1 (indicate the area 1 with 31.3 ha) and A2 (indicate the area 2 with 21.2 ha).Figure 2 -Number of species collected at Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto for each tribes and genus.

Figure 2 -
Figure 1 -a-c.Site selected for floristic inventory -a.Brazil country; b.Goiás state showing Quirinópolis municipality; c.Fragment at Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto, A1 (indicate the area 1 with 31.3 ha) and A2 (indicate the area 2 with 21.2 ha).Figure 2 -Number of species collected at Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto for each tribes and genus.

Table 1 -
Asteraceae' species at Serra da Confusão do Rio Preto, origin and endemism, vegetation where the specimen have been collected and conservation status.
Examined material:
Examined material:
Examined material:
Examined material:
Examined material: