ABSTRACT Phytosociological analysis in native forests is performed considering the horizontal and vertical structure of the studied population, whose most expressive parameters are the density, dominance, frequency, value of coverage and value of importance of species. Many phytosociological studies include a value of importance of species calculated by adding density, dominance and frequency, in their relative forms, however, this estimator is a mathematical impropriety because the result is a sum of indexes and does not express the true meaning of species' value. This is because the estimator is still influenced predominantly by the density of occurrence of species and cannot capture the relevant hierarchical participation of emerging species that occur... |