Pollination Systems in the Atlantic Forest: Characterisation, Threats, and Opportunities

Varassin, Isabela Galarda; Agostini, Kayna; Wolowski, Marina; Freitas, Leandro

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-55322-7_15

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 108 publications

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“…The presence of foraging hummingbirds on inconspicuous, nectar‐producing, small‐flowered species of Miconia was reported only once in the Atlantic tropical forest (Varassin et al, 2021). Therefore, this second report of Metallura tyrianthina (species confirmed consulting Medina et al, 2015) visiting flowers of M. elaeoides may indicate that nectar production might be the main trait to predict hummingbird visits in Miconieae species found on other melastome clades (Varassin et al, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First report on generalized pollination systems in Melastomataceae for the Andean páramos

Valderrama

Varassin

Passos

et al. 2022

Plant Species Biology

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Melastomataceae is a megadiverse family with records of transitions from specialized to generalized pollination systems for several species. These transitions are associated with the colonization of new, unpredictable and/or impoverished pollinator habitats or habitats where specialized pollinators are scarce (e.g., in highland environments). The bee species diversity is low in highlands. Therefore, autonomous breeding systems such as apomixis and self‐pollination emerge in these environments. In this paper, we studied the floral traits associated with the generalization of pollination systems and registered the floral visitors of two species in the Colombian Andes: Miconia cataractae and M. elaeoides. We investigated the breeding system of M. elaeoides. Both species presented small flowers, short anthers of medium pore size, and nectar‐producing stomata on the base of the anthers. Miconia cataractae produced an average of 1.62 μl nectar/flower, a sugar concentration of 6.78%, whereas M. elaeoides produced 0.09 μl nectar/flower, a sugar concentration of 6.13%. We recorded a wide diversity of pollinators for both species, mainly insects from the orders Hymenoptera and Diptera. Miconia elaeoides presented a mixed breeding system and was also capable of setting fruits by apomixis. We conclude that flower and anther morphology, combined with nectar production, thus represent convergent traits resulting in a generalist pollination system shared by M. cataractae and M. elaeoides. Here, we presented the first generalist pollination system recorded for Miconia (and the Melastomataceae) in the Andes, the first report for a species from the small‐pored section Amblyarrhena, and the first report for a species from the large‐pored section Cremanium in Colombia.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First report on generalized pollination systems in Melastomataceae for the Andean páramos

Valderrama

Varassin

Passos

et al. 2022

Plant Species Biology

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“…The intensification of degradation arises with the Portuguese colonization and degradation of agricultural processes such as large plantation systems (sugarcane and coffee), extensive cattle production, energy demand (charcoal), fires, and urban and industrial growth (Solórzano et al, 2021). These habitat transformations have affected the biodiversity in the AF for different taxonomic groups (Püttker et al, 2020) and ecological processes, such as seed dispersal (Marjakangas et al, 2020), carbon storage (de Lima et al, 2020), pollination (Varassin et al, 2021), and top-down regulation through top predators (Paviolo et al 2016). In addition, other processes pose risks to the remaining landscapes within the AF, such as defaunation (Galetti et al, 2021) and climate change (Vale et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Atlantic Forest of South America: spatiotemporal dynamics of remaining vegetation and implications for conservation

Vancine,

Muylaert,

Niebuhr

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The Atlantic Forest in South America (AF) is one of the world's most diverse and threatened biodiversity hotspots. We present a comprehensive spatiotemporal analysis of 34 years of AF landscape change between 1986-2020. We analyzed landscape metrics of forest vegetation only (FV), forest plus other natural vegetation (NV), and investigated the sensitivity of metrics to linear infrastructure. Currently, remnants comprise about 23% of FV and 40% of NV, and have decreased by 2.4% and 3.6% since 1986, respectively. Linear infrastructure negatively affected large fragments (>500,000 ha) by severely breaking them apart and amplifying fragmentation metrics. Our findings suggest that AF protection legislation adopted in mid-2005 has taken effect: between 1986-2005, there was a loss of FV and NV (3% and 3.45%) and a decrease in the number of FV and NV fragments (8.6% and 8.3%). Between 2005-2020, there was a relative recovery of FV (1 Mha; 0.6%), slight loss of NV (0.25 Mha; 0.15%), and increase in the number of FV and NV fragments (12% and 9%), with a connectivity increment. Still, 97% of the vegetation fragments are small (<50 ha), with an average fragment size between 16 and 26 ha. Furthermore, 50-60% of the vegetation is <90 m from its edges, and the isolation between fragments is high (250-830 m). Alarmingly, protected areas and indigenous territories cover only 10% of the AF and are very far from any fragments (>10 km). Our work highlights the importance of legislation and landscape dynamics analysis to help monitor and keep track of AF biodiversity conservation and restoration programs in the future.

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“…A great part of the AF biodiversity is highly threatened, especially birds (Bonfim et al 2021), small mammals (Palmeirim et al 2019), medium and large mammals (Rios et al 2021b) and amphibians (Almeida-Gomes and Rocha 2014). Furthermore, ecological processes are also affected by landscape modifications, such as interaction networks (Marjakangas et al 2020, Monteiro et al 2022, carbon storage (Bello et al 2015, de Lima et al 2020, Pyles et al 2022) and pollination (Varassin et al 2021). In addition, other threats to the AF landscapes are defaunation (Galetti et al 2017(Galetti et al , 2021, the introduction of non-native species (Vitule et al 2021) and climate change (Scarano andCeotto 2015, Vale et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

ATLANTIC SPATIAL: a dataset of landscape, topographic, hydrologic and anthropogenic metrics for the Atlantic Forest

Vancine,

Niebuhr,

Muylaert

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Space is one of the main drivers of biodiversity, once it regulates the underlying processes affecting the distribution and dynamics of species. It is a fundamental factor in face of the rapid climate and land use and land cover changes at local and global scales, which are linked to habitat loss and fragmentation and their impacts on various organisms. The Atlantic Forest of South America (AF) is among the global biodiversity hotspots because of its high species richness and endemism. Most of the threats to the AF biodiversity is due to the expansion of urbanization and industry, extensive agricultural and livestock production and mining. Here, we make available integrated and fine-scale spatial information (resolution = 30 m) for the entire AF extent for the year 2020. The metrics consider different vegetation classes (forest and forest plus other natural vegetation), effects of linear structure (roads and railways) and multiple scales (radius buffer from 50 m to 2,500 m and up to 10 km for some metrics). The entire data set is composed of 500 rasters and the AF delimitation vector, available through the R package atlanticr, which we developed to facilitate the organization and acquisition of the data. The metrics consists of land cover (31 classes), distance to grouped land cover classes (forest vegetation, natural vegetation, pasture, temporary crop, perennial crop, forest plantation, urban areas, mining and water), a set of landscape, topographic and hydrologic metrics and anthropogenic infrastructure. The landscape metrics include landscape morphology (classification as matrix, core, edge, corridor, stepping stone, branch and perforation), fragment area and proportion, area and number of patches, edge and core areas and proportion, structural and functional connectivity (for different organisms’ gap-crossing capabilities), distance to fragment edges, fragment perimeter and perimeter-area ratio and landscape diversity. Topographic metrics include elevation, slope, aspect, curvatures and landform elements (peak, ridge, shoulder, spur, slope, hollow, footslope, valley, pit and ﬂat), hydrologic metrics comprise potential springs and its kernel and potential streams and respective distances and anthropogenic infrastructure maps contain roads, railways, protected areas and indigenous territories and the respective distance to each of them. These data sets will allow for efficient integration of biodiversity and environmental data for the AF in future ecological studies, and we expect it to be an important reference and data source for landscape planning, biodiversity conservation and forest restoration programs.

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Pollination Systems in the Atlantic Forest: Characterisation, Threats, and Opportunities

Cited by 5 publications

References 108 publications

First report on generalized pollination systems in Melastomataceae for the Andean páramos

First report on generalized pollination systems in Melastomataceae for the Andean páramos

The Atlantic Forest of South America: spatiotemporal dynamics of remaining vegetation and implications for conservation

ATLANTIC SPATIAL: a dataset of landscape, topographic, hydrologic and anthropogenic metrics for the Atlantic Forest

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