Recursos vegetais chave para a fauna de vertebrados nos biomas brasileiros

Abstract

Brazil has a continental scale, is the largest tropical country, and contains six biomes (Amazon, Caatinga, Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, Pampa, and Pantanal). The Caatinga, a biome distributed exclusively in Brazilian territory, has a rich biodiversity and is one of the most threatened biomes in the country. In the Caatinga, the cactus Cereus jamacaru D.C is an abundant species and possibly one of the main resources for sustaining the food web of homeothermic vertebrates in the biome. Like the C. jamacaru in the Caatinga, in other Brazilian biomes, plant species are fundamental for the trophic structure of homeothermic vertebrate communities. Homeothermic vertebrates are important pollinators, predators, and dispersers of fruits and seeds and are threatened by habitat loss and destruction. The objectives of this study were (1) to evaluate and measure the ecology of happy among bird assemblages induced by the fruiting of one of the main remaining plant resources of the Caatinga biome (Cereus jamacaru: mandacaru), and (2) to identify — for the other biomes Brazilians — hub plant species capable of maintaining and structuring the diversity of homeotherms. To achieve these goals, we use different data collection methods. For the first objective, in Chapter 1, we evaluated, using camera traps, the transition networks between birds and the mandacaru in the Caatinga. For the second objective, exactly in chapter 2, published data on hub species and their association with the vertebrate fauna (mammals and birds) in the six Brazilian biomes were collected through indexing tools using keywords. Our main results show that Acca sellowiana, Araucaria angustifolia, Bertholletia excelsa, Butia sp., Cereus jamacaru, Euterpes edulis, Ficus sp., Syagrus romanzoffiana act as hub species. This work contributes to the knowledge of the ecology and conservation of plant species in association with homeothermic vertebrates in Brazilian biomes.