Aim: There is little consensus on which environmental variables are best at predicting multiple dimensions of diversity. We ask whether there are common environmental correlates of diversity, despite ecological differences, across nine clades of plants and animals distributed along a single rainforest domain. For that, we compare the environmental correlates of species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and phylogenetic endemism.Location: Brazilian Atlantic Forest.
The shortage of reliable primary taxonomic data limits the description of biological taxa and the understanding of biodiversity patterns and processes, complicating biogeographical, ecological, and evolutionary studies. This deficit creates a significant taxonomic impediment to biodiversity research and conservation planning. The taxonomic impediment and the biodiversity crisis are widely recognized, highlighting the urgent need for reliable taxonomic data. Over the past decade, numerous countries worldwide have devoted considerable effort to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for the preparation of a working list of all known plant species by 2010 and an online world Flora by 2020. Brazil is a megadiverse country, home to more of the world's known plant species than any other country. Despite that, Flora Brasiliensis, concluded in 1906, was the last comprehensive treatment of the Brazilian flora. The lack of accurate estimates of the number of species of algae, fungi, and plants occurring in Brazil contributes to the prevailing taxonomic impediment and delays progress towards the GSPC targets. Over the past 12 years, a legion of taxonomists motivated to meet Target 1 of the GSPC, worked together to gather and integrate knowledge on the algal, plant, and fungal diversity of Brazil. Overall, a team of about 980 taxonomists joined efforts in a highly collaborative project that used cybertaxonomy to prepare an updated Flora of Brazil, showing the power of scientific collaboration to reach ambitious goals. This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian Flora 2020 and provides taxonomic and spatial updates on the algae, fungi, and plants found in one of the world's most biodiverse countries. We further identify collection gaps and summarize future goals that extend beyond 2020. Our results show that Brazil is home to 46,975 native species of algae, fungi, and plants, of which 19,669 are endemic to the country. The data compiled to date suggests that the Atlantic Rainforest might be the most diverse Brazilian domain for all plant groups except gymnosperms, which are most diverse in the Amazon. However, scientific knowledge of Brazilian diversity is still unequally distributed, with the Atlantic Rainforest and the Cerrado being the most intensively sampled and studied biomes in the country. In times of “scientific reductionism”, with botanical and mycological sciences suffering pervasive depreciation in recent decades, the first online Flora of Brazil 2020 significantly enhanced the quality and quantity of taxonomic data available for algae, fungi, and plants from Brazil. This project also made all the information freely available online, providing a firm foundation for future research and for the management, conservation, and sustainable use of the Brazilian funga and flora.
The colonization of the epiphytic niche of Neotropical forest canopies played an important role in orchid's extraordinary diversification, with rare reversions to the terrestrial habit. To understand the evolutionary context of those reversals, we investigated the diversification of Galeandra, a Neotropical orchid genus which includes epiphytic and terrestrial species. We hypothesized that reversion to the terrestrial habit accompanied the expansion of savannas. To test this hypothesis we generated a comprehensive time-calibrated phylogeny and employed comparative methods. We found that Galeandra originated towards the end of the Miocene in Amazonia. The terrestrial clade originated synchronously with the rise of dry vegetation biomes in the last 5 million years, suggesting that aridification dramatically impacted plant diversification and habits in the Neotropics. Shifts in habit impacted floral spur lengths and geographic range size, but not climatic niche. The longer spurs and narrower ranges characterize epiphytic species, which probably adapted to specialized long-tongued Euglossini bee pollinators inhabiting forested habits. The terrestrial species present variable floral spurs and wider distribution ranges, with evidence of self-pollination, suggesting the loss of specialized pollination system and concomitant range expansion. Our study highlights how climate change impacted habit evolution and associated traits such as mutualistic interactions with pollinators.
ResumoGaleandra possui 18 espécies terrícolas e epífitas com distribuição neotropical, sendo reconhecidas principalmente pelas flores com labelo em forma de funil e calcar na base. O objetivo deste trabalho foi realizar o estudo taxonômico de Galeandra no estado do Paraná, apresentando descrições, ilustrações, mapa de distribuição, chave de identificação, status de conservação e comentários para cada espécie. O gênero está presente nas cinco unidades fitogeográficas do estado, ocorrendo em Floresta Estacional Semidecidual (G. beyrichii e G, styllomisantha), nas Florestas Ombrófilas Mista e Densa (G. beyrichii) em vegetações de campo e áreas relictuais de Cerrado (G. beyrichii, G. montana e G. paraguayensis, sendo G. montana o primeiro registro para o estado). De acordo com os critérios da IUCN, G. beyrichii apresenta baixo risco (LC) de extinção, G. paraguayensis pode ser considerada em perigo (EN) e G. montana e G. styllomisantha como criticamente em perigo (CR) sendo a última possivelmente extinta no estado. Palavras-chave: Biodiversidade, Flora do Paraná, IUCN, Floresta Atlântica. AbstractGaleandra has 18 species with Neotropical distribution. Consisting of terrestrial and epiphytic species, the genus is recognized by flowers with funnel-shaped lip and spur at the base.
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