Archipelago of Montane Forests Surrounded by Rupestrian Grasslands: New Insights and Perspectives

Coelho, Marcel Serra; Fernándes, G. Wilson; Pacheco, Priscila; Diniz, Victor; Meireles, Alline; Santos, Rubens Manoel dos; Carvalho, F. A.; Negreiros, Daniel

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-29808-5_7

Cited by 24 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Patches of gallery forest and hilltop forest occur within the campo rupestre matrix (Coelho, Carlos, et al, ). These forests occur at moist locations, associated with springs and streams or with deeper soil patches that are less well drained than the surrounding grasslands (Coelho et al, ; Valente, ). Here, plants experience a range of milder environmental conditions compared with the grassland habitat, for example, slightly less nutrient‐poor soils and historically lower fire frequency (Coelho, Neves, Perillo, Morellato, & Fernandes, ; Valente, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ontogenetic shifts in plant ecological strategies

et al. 2018

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Ontogenetic shifts in plants are ubiquitous, but their ecological and evolutionary significance remain largely unknown. Juveniles have few opportunities to accumulate sufficient biomass to withstand damage, whereas adults allocate resources to reproduction. Thus, age‐specific environmental filters are expected to drive selection towards specific resource‐investment strategies for each developmental stage. We tested whether species exhibited strategies that favour faster rates of biomass accumulation during early developmental stages to cope with vulnerability, shifting towards habitat‐dependent strategies to optimise resource acquisition and use later on. We also hypothesised that juveniles exhibit greater intraspecific variability of strategies than adults, as a result of continuous filtering of traits throughout the plant’s development towards adulthood. We measured key leaf traits—leaf area (LA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and specific leaf area (SLA)—and calculated scores for competitor (C), stress‐tolerator (S), ruderal (R) strategies of the CSR system for juveniles of 54 species and conspecific adults of 27 species naturally occurring either in unproductive (grassland) or productive (forest) habitats. Juveniles exhibited higher SLA and LA and lower LDMC, and thus a more R‐strategy in both habitats when compared with adults, but were not necessarily “R” in absolute terms. We also found smaller intraspecific variation for the R‐strategy in adults compared with juveniles in both habitats, whereas the variation of the other strategies was habitat dependent. Ontogenetic shifts in ecological strategies appear to have been selected as a response to ontogeny‐dependent filters. Thus, strategies that favour less costly leaves and faster growth rates (relatively R‐selected) in juveniles shift towards C and/or S strategies in adulthood, depending on habitat productivity. Nevertheless, habitat‐dependent specialisation seems to be a major driver of ecological strategy selection in juveniles. Our study reveals ontogeny‐dependent strategies, offering a new approach to integrate plant development and functional specialisation. A http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2435.13221/suppinfo is available for this article.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ontogenetic shifts in plant ecological strategies

et al. 2018

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“…The association between forest and grassland vegetation has fueled the interest of the scientific community, especially understanding how drivers control the natural boundaries between such very distinct ecosystems (Safford, 2007;Bond, 2008Bond, , 2010Rehm and Feeley, 2015). There are many factors that can influence the expansion or contraction of forest edges on natural grasslands, among them climate (Harsh and Bader, 2011;Halladay et al, 2012Halladay et al, 2012, seed dispersion and germination, and seedling establishment (Dullinger et al, 2004;Cierjacks et al, 2007;Körner, 2012;Rehm and Feeley, 2013), fire (Bond and Keeley, 2005;Veldman et al, 2015), soil patches (Coelho et al, 2016), as well as anthropogenic disturbances (Kolbek and Alves, 2008) stand out. Most studies on the subject have focused on high mountains, between 3000 and 4000 m a.s.l., where forests are replaced by grasslands with increasing altitude (Körner, 1998;Jobbágy and Jackson, 2000;Körner and Paulsen, 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, tropical mountains of lower altitudes (between 1000 and 3000 m a.s.l) or tropical snow-free mountains (Streher et al, 2017) exhibited naturally fragmented landscapes formed by forest islands immersed in a grassland matrix, characterizing true forest archipelagos. In such landscape, forests and grasslands coexist at the same altitudinal levels, indicating that additional factors such as soil physical and chemical parameters might be responsible for the distribution of tree species (Coelho et al, 2016). Thus, natural forest islands on mountaintops are excellent models for testing hypotheses involving the connection between local environmental properties and the functional traits of tree community.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The more humid eastern slopes of the mountains are covered by semi-deciduous forests associated with the Atlantic Forest domain, while the drier western slopes are covered by physiognomies associated with the Cerrado domain − predominantly campo rupestre (Silveira et al, 2016) hereafter rupestrian grasslands. Part of the humidity of the eastern slope of the mountains reaches the transitional zones located near the mountaintops and advances over rupestrian grasslands located at higher altitudes (Coelho et al, 2016(Coelho et al, , 2018Streher et al, 2017). When the moist conditions are associated with soil patches with chemical and physical parameters different from surrounding rupestrian grasslands soil, these areas of environmental suitability favor the establishment of tree-dominated physiognomies or forests islands, locally called capões de mata (Coelho et al, 2016 and references therein).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Part of the humidity of the eastern slope of the mountains reaches the transitional zones located near the mountaintops and advances over rupestrian grasslands located at higher altitudes (Coelho et al, 2016(Coelho et al, , 2018Streher et al, 2017). When the moist conditions are associated with soil patches with chemical and physical parameters different from surrounding rupestrian grasslands soil, these areas of environmental suitability favor the establishment of tree-dominated physiognomies or forests islands, locally called capões de mata (Coelho et al, 2016 and references therein). Tree species are dispersed to these humid mountaintops predominantly by animals, via gallery forests from the eastern slope, forming archipelagos of forest islands (Coelho et al, 2018;Pereira et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Connection between tree functional traits and environmental parameters in an archipelago of montane forests surrounded by rupestrian grasslands

Coelho

Carlos

Pinto

et al. 2018

Flora

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Forest islands are unique habitats standing out across mountains dominated by rupestrian grassland in southeastern Brazil. In this work we evaluated the relationship between the plant species functional traits (number of ecoregions in which a species occurs, potential height, mean height, mean basal area, mean leaf area) and ecological variables (leaf damage from chewing herbivores, the number of individuals) with environmental parameters (physical and chemical properties of the soil, canopy cover) of the tree communities in an archipelago of montane forest islands immersed in rupestrian grasslands. We found a strong connection between the traits of tree species and environmental parameters; habitats associated with high soil fertility and canopy cover (leaf area index) harbored species with high structural values (i.e., height and basal area), broad distribution among Brazilian ecoregions, high rates of leaf damage from chewing insects and fewer individuals. Habitats with low soil fertility and canopy cover values harbored species with low structural values, restricted geographic distribution and low rates of leaf damage by chewing insects. Although physical parameters play an important role in the establishment of forest islands, our results point to chemical indicators of soil fertility as a relevant environmental promoter, influencing the composition and structure of island tree communities. The impact of local habitat parameters on the tree species functional traits showed that habitat heterogeneity is essential in structuring tree communities in this natural archipelago of forest islands. We advocate that understanding the connection between habitat parameters and species functional traits can help to predict the ecological consequences of anthropogenic or natural impacts to those forests, supporting the development of effective conservation strategies.

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Differential response of fire on the community dynamics of five insect taxa in a tropical mountaintop forest archipelago

Kuchenbecker,

Camarota,

da Silva

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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The Earth's most diverse group of organisms is facing an imminent crisis, as recent investigations suggest a remarkable decline in insect diversity. Within this context, altimontane forest islands might emerge as important refuges holding an invaluable diversity of species that would be doomed to disappear. Here, we aimed to examine the impact of fire on the temporal variation of ant, bee, butterfly, dung beetle, and wasp communities in natural and highly threatened altimontane forest islands. We predicted that fire incidence would increase the natural variation in the structure of these insects' communities over time. Furthermore, we predicted that each taxon would respond accordingly to their ability to move between forest islands (i.e., vagility). We sampled these five bioindicator taxa in the rainy seasons of 2014, 2015, 2018, and 2020 within 14 forest islands in southeast Brazil. We assessed the incidence (presence/absence) of fire occurrence on each forest island toward the end of the dry season in each sampling year. We found an influence of fire incidence on the species composition changes over time (temporal β‐diversity) in the less vagile insect groups: ants, and dung beetles. Nevertheless, we found no influence of fire incidence on shifts in species composition of highly vagile insects: bees, butterflies, and wasps. Importantly, species turnover was the primary component of temporal β‐diversity driving the interannual variation of all insect taxa examined in this study. Our results highlight the distinct responses of more‐or‐less vagile insect groups to fire in forested ecosystems and shed light on the drivers of vulnerability and resilience of these groups to this critical anthropogenic pressure. By understanding and elucidating the intricate responses of distinct insect communities to global stressors, we can strengthen our capacity to predict future trends in biodiversity decline and provide valuable insights for conservation efforts and environmental management strategies.

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Archipelago of Montane Forests Surrounded by Rupestrian Grasslands: New Insights and Perspectives

Cited by 24 publications

References 43 publications

Ontogenetic shifts in plant ecological strategies

Ontogenetic shifts in plant ecological strategies

Connection between tree functional traits and environmental parameters in an archipelago of montane forests surrounded by rupestrian grasslands

Differential response of fire on the community dynamics of five insect taxa in a tropical mountaintop forest archipelago

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