Boolean search files Campo rupestre and cerrado rupestre, a review of terms and their uses in Brazil

Open, non-forest ecosystems have a long history of neglect in terms of research and conservation. Two of these ecosystems, the campo rupestre and the cerrado rupestre, occur in the Brazilian highlands and intrigue researchers because they have somewhat unclear concepts and differences, leading to debates regarding their characteristics, definitions and biogeography. The present review of the expressions campo rupestre and cerrado rupestre in scientific and historical literature aims to detect their use and attributes. A systematic review of the WEB of Science and Google Scholar databases using Boolean methods, including their English language equivalents (rocky fields, rocky grasslands, rupestrian grasslands, rupestrian cerrado, rupestrian savanna), observing the historic evolution of the identification, characterization and descriptors. “Cerrado rupestre” had 40 results in the Web of Science and 2,200 citations in Google Scholar. “Campo rupestre” was mentioned 510 in Web of Science and 9,940 in Google Scholar. We conducted an initial selective review (47 items) of the main authors that described open altitude ecosystems in Brazil, in order to understand the building process for these concepts and their similarities and differences. Cerrado rupestre is an expression used to define a vegetation type, or phytophysiognomy, meanwhile campo rupestre may be used in the sense of phytophysiognomy or as a phytogeographical province. In the last decade, the campos rupestres have raised awareness of the scientific community, as their outstanding biodiversity is increasingly under threat of growing agribusiness and climate change, leading to a compromise of their essential ecological functions. Despite understanding the fragmented geographic distribution and biodiversity of the campo rupestre, current environmental policies are not effective in promoting its conservation. The situation of the cerrado rupestre demands further studies to understand its composition and ecosystem functions to appropriately guide its conservation priorities.