Environment occurrence of freshwater sponge Oncosclera jewelli in the Tainhas State Park, RS: a geomorphometric analysis

Tainhas State Park embraces locations of occurrence of freshwater sponge Oncosclera jewelli. Our objective is to indicate the areas of potential occurrence of the species from factors related to the geomorphometric signature of the occurance points along the Tainhas River in the Park and its buffer zone. Connections and data analysis were performed from the construction and manipulation of a geographic database, in SIGs SPRING-5.4.3 and QGIS-2.18, containing: a) MDEs from Topodata, Embrapa and Alos bases, obtained by remote orbitals sensors for the entire study area, and MDE obtained by drone-generated aerial images of the geomorphometric variables: slope, aspect and topographic position index; b) geological map of Rio Grande do Sul; c) land use and coverage map, based on images from the GeoEye satellite. The results demonstrated that the species occurs exclusively on the lithological unit of Serra Geral Formation. The plain is marked by terrain of low slope and south and east orientation and flattened plains. The Potential Occurrence Map of the species was generated, demonstrating that approximately 4.5% of the total length of watercourse stretches in the study area meet the analyzed geomorphometric conditions.