Estrutura filogenética e funcional de assembleia de aves da Caatinga e seus determinantes ambientais

• Autor(a) principal: Nascimento, Erivelton Rosário do
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Trabalho de conclusão de curso
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFS
• Texto Completo: https://ri.ufs.br/handle/riufs/6783
• topic: Ecologia; Ensino de ecologia; Ecologia animal; Caatinga; Ecologia; Ecology teaching; Animal ecology; CIENCIAS BIOLOGICAS::ECOLOGIA::ECOLOGIA DE ECOSSISTEMAS

In order to elucidate the different factors that determine the distribution and diversity of species in ecological communities, ecological and evolutionary aspects have been incorporated in ecology studies, allowing inferences about the processes involved in the coexistence patterns through the phylogenetic and functional structure of assemblies. When competition is an active process in the formation of ecological communities, the result is the coexistence of distant species (phylogenetic and functional), the dispersion indicative of the action of competitive interactions shaping the structure of those assemblies. On the other hand, environmental filters impose species restrictions allowing the coexistence of closely related or ecologically similar taxa, being the grouped pattern of the structure indicative of the filtering processes. Birds have been widely used in studies because of the high diversity, availability of information, and clear patterns of niche sharing in communities. Besides being a center of endemism for birds, the Caatinga presents diverse historical and climatic peculiarities, making it a very unique biome. Here we seek to understand how ecological and evolutionary processes determine species distribution patterns and structure the Caatinga bird communities. For this, we evaluated the phylogenetic and functional structure of 123 bird assemblages of the Caatinga using the phylogenetic and functional distance NRI and NTI metrics. In addition, we tested environmental hypotheses related to the current climate, historical climatic stability, productivity and environmental heterogeneity. Phylogenetic structure of the assemblies, have been shown to be predominantly formed through environmental filtering processes, especially related to climatic factors and to a lesser extent by competition. On the other hand, the functional structure seems to result mainly from stochastic processes, with primary productivity as an important factor in the formation of assemblies with some functional structure. In addition, we observed low congruence between phylogenetic and functional diversity reinforcing the idea that phylogenetic relationships do not necessarily reflect functional aspects. However, both allow to understand distinct processes related to the patterns of coexistence of species along environmental gradients.