Atributos morfológios e estrutura de redes de interação beija-flor planta

• Autor(a) principal: Costa, Kelly Christie dos Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFG
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/12230
• topic: Correspondência morfológica; Especialização; Guilda; Ornitofilia; Trochilidae; Specialization; Guild; Ornithophily; Trochilidae; Morphological correspondence; CIENCIAS BIOLOGICAS

Biotic specialization plays a central role in the coexistence of species. Many studies address the pollination performed by hummingbirds, however, researches related to the effects of morphological characters of plants and hummingbirds on the specialization of networks are scarce. In this context, this study aims to answer whether i) the dominance of ornithophilous plant species increases the specialization of hummingbird-plant interaction networks?; ii) ornithophilous plants show greater diversity of interactions with hummingbirds than non-ornithophilous plants?; iii) do the size of the beak and the weight of the hummingbird influence the diversity of their interactions? Searches were carried out for studies on hummingbird-plant interactions in the Neotropics. We compiled 24 networks composed of 34 species of hummingbirds, 326 species of plants and 1,182 distinct interactions. We found no effect of the dominance of ornithophilous plants on the structure (connectance and modularity) of the networks. On the other hand, interactions at the species level were influenced by morphological characteristics of plants and hummingbirds. The similarity of plant species interactions was higher for ornithophilous plants than non-ornithophilous plants. This is due to the set of characters present in the group of ornithophilic plants that confer attractiveness to hummingbirds. Thus, hummingbirds tend to visit more similar plant species leading to a greater similarity of interactions. The beak size positively influenced the degree and specialization of hummingbird interactions. The greater number of interactions between hummingbirds with longer beaks is probably a result of the morphological fit between the birds' beak and the flower's corolla. Our findings show that morphological characteristics of hummingbird species and plants directly influence the diversity of interactions of Neotropical hummingbird-plant networks and species specialization. Studies like this provide important information for understanding the factors that structure communities.