Cerrado's Long Arc of Time: From Past Evolution to Modern Environmental Changes

BACKGROUND: From an ancient landscape shaped over 65 million years to its transformation into a global agricultural powerhouse, the Brazilian Cerrado is the world's most species-rich savanna, with profound but overlooked historical and cultural roots. The complex interactions among the modern nexus of agricultural expansion, climate change, and weak legal protections threaten its existence. SCOPE: We present an overview of its flora, the main environmental factors, and the plant traits that help it cope with them, the historical occupation of the land by human populations, and how climate change is already affecting species distribution and interactions. CONCLUSIONS: The Cerrado's fate is a pivotal global issue, balancing urgent conservation and climate protection with the transition to sustainable agrifood systems. Complex Cerrado floristic patterns, reflecting the biome's compositional diversity demand consistent regional strategies.