Ilhas florestais, redes de interação formiga-planta e a conservação de processos ecológicos
Ant-plant mutualism is an important feature of the Amazon biodiversity. Its coevolutionary trajectories which generated tight compartmented networks are nowadays threatened by habitat alteration. The recent Brazilian demand for energy is leading to the construction of a series of hydroelectric wh...
| Autor principal: | Emer, Carine |
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| Grau: | Dissertação |
| Idioma: | por |
| Publicado em: |
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia - INPA
2020
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| Assuntos: | |
| Acesso em linha: |
https://repositorio.inpa.gov.br/handle/1/11950 http://lattes.cnpq.br/2953372411320303 |
| Resumo: |
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Ant-plant mutualism is an important feature of the Amazon biodiversity. Its coevolutionary
trajectories which generated tight compartmented networks are nowadays threatened by
habitat alteration. The recent Brazilian demand for energy is leading to the construction of a
series of hydroelectric which causes habitat loss and fragmentation. Our goal is to test how
dam fragmentation affects the structure of ant-plant mutualistic networks, in particular species
density and richness, connectance, modularity, and nestedness. We compared the networks of
continuous forest with those from islands and lake edges as well as how networks change
among islands varying in area, isolation, shape, and neighborhood. We developed the study in
the Biological Reserve of Uatumã in Central Amazon, which includes the continuous forest
around the 3147 km 2 of the Balbina dam reservoir and more than 3500 islands. Ant-plant
communities were surveyed along 600 x 5 m plots in 20 islands, 5 lake edges, and 6 forests
sites. Plant and ant richness and density was lower in islands and lake edge in comparison
with forest, increased with island area and decreased with isolation. Density of all
myrmecophyte species decreased from forest to lake edge and island. Unoccupied plants
percentage was three times higher on islands than on forest. Plant and ant community, as well
as interactions on islands and lake edge were nested with forest. Forest network was highly
compartmented, while island and lake edge networks lost species, interactions and
compartments and won new opportunistic ant species. Connectance didn’t change among
habitats and was not related to islands traits. Natural history, landscape traits, ecological
processes decay, coextinction, and new interactions were discussed as the main factors
involved on nested communities, networks changes, species loss and connectance constancy
of our community. Coextinction and interaction loss by dam fragmentation can influence
evolutionary processes with important implications for conservation. |