Cerrado Rupestre is not Campo Rupestre: The unknown and threatened savannah on rocky outcrops

Abstract

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A double defensive mutualism? A case between plants, extrafloral nectaries, and trophobionts

“…This does not seem to be a problem for Z. montana. Surprisingly, in a population of this shrub that occurs in the Cerrado Rupestre, a rare ecosystem on rocky outcrops above 800 m altitude in Minas Gerais (Pereira and Fernandes 2022), southeastern Brazil (Fig. 1), we observed a second defensive mutualism occurring on these plants throughout 2021.…”

“…Common or not, we emphasize that insect-plant interactions such as those presented here are at serious risk of disappearing along with the rare environments in which they occur (Pereira and Fernandes 2022). Biodiversity has been increasingly impacted by climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, invasive alien species, and overexploitation of natural environments, which lead several species to population collapse (Cardinale et al 2012).…”