Disturbances and environmental gradients influence the dynamics of individuals and basal area in the Cerrado complex

•Savanna formations has a median recruitment rate 2.2 times higher than forests.•The mortality of individuals in disturbed areas was 1.7 times higher than non-disturbed.•Elevation, temperature and precipitation have nonlinear effects on vegetation dynamics.•Disturbance and fragmentation are the main disturbances investigated in savannas. The Cerrado complex is covered by twelve physiognomies characterized by a gradient of grassland, savanna and forest formations. We assessed the recruitment (RI) and mortality (MI) of individuals and the gain (BG) and loss (BL) of basal area in the Cerrado complex. We used 26 sites classified into savanna (15) and forest formations (11); dry (19) and moist environments (7); non-disturbed (14) and disturbed areas (12) that were recovered from the literature. The median of the vegetation dynamics varied as follows: MI = 3.95, RI = 2.99, BL = 3.08 and the BG = 3.99. MI exceeded RI at 13 sites, and forests formation comprised 70% of the sites with high MI. The median RI was 2.2 times higher in savanna than in forest formations, while it was 1.7 times higher in disturbed areas than in non-disturbed ones. Although the vegetation dynamics have been studied for decades in Cerrado, the studies of disturbances are majority focused on fire and fragmentation effects, indicating that the research should go beyond it. Generalized additive models (GAMs) showed that the MI, RI, BL and BG differ in their responses to three environmental gradients: (1) elevation + temperature, (2) precipitation and (3) precipitation seasonality, even across sites with similar environmental conditions.