Abstract Canga, or ironstone, ecosystems are hotspots of old-growth plant diversity and highly specialized cave invertebrates. These ancient metalliferous habitats amongst the most threatened because destruction caused by large-scale iron ore mining. International debate on biodiversity offsets is increasing these mechanisms seen as tools for potentially balancing economic development with cons...

Abstract Environmental filtering and niche differentiation are often invoked to explain species coexistence at local scales. The ironstone campo rupestre of Brazil provides a biodiverse natural experiment in which edaphic gradients represent filters test the hypothesis that plant community functional composition, despite converging on extreme stress tolerance, exhibits co-structure with environ...