Diversidade taxonômica, filogenética e funcional de aves em gradientes ambientais na caatinga

• Autor(a) principal: Correia, Kelly Isadora de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFS
• Texto Completo: https://ri.ufs.br/handle/riufs/4461
• topic: Ecologia; Aves; Animais da caatinga; Diversidade biológica; Assembleias de aves; Biodiversidade; Gradientes ecológicos; Incerteza filogenética; Semiárido; Traços funcionais; Birds assemblages; Biodiversity; Ecological gradients; Phylogenetic uncertainty; Semiarid; Functional traits; CIENCIAS BIOLOGICAS::ECOLOGIA

Biological diversity is a broad, deep and multifaceted concept that describes all variability of living forms on different spatial and temporal scales and levels of organization. Even among species, diversity can assume distinct characters, including a taxonomic, a phylogenetic and a functional one. Semiarid ecosystems such as the Caatinga were poorly addressed from an integrated perspective of its biodiversity. The region possess high biotic variability and undergoes intense pressures from abiotic and anthropogenic factors. With around 500 species known in the biome, birds compose an expressive biological group in the Caatinga, with distinct evolutionary lineages and ecological features. This study aims to understand the evolutionary and ecological aspects of the diversity of birds of the Caatinga and their environmental drivers. Specifically, we aim to (i) summarize the existing knowledge on birds assemblages in the biome, their phylogenetic relationships and ecological (i.e., functional) differences; (ii) investigate the interrelationships among taxonomic, phylogenetic and functional diversity, including their distinct measures; (iii) evaluate the effects of different environmental (climatic and structural) gradients on these different dimensions of bird diversity; and (iv) evaluate the effects of these factors on the functional diversity based on individual traits. We gathered information of 123 birds assemblages from the Caatinga based on the available literature, and used a species-level phylogenetic tree and a set of speciesspecific functional traits to estimate the phylogenetic and functional diversities, respectively. Also, we explored different diversity metrics, aiming to understand their interrelationships and select those less biased by species richness and sampling effort. 523 species composed the regional diversity of the Caatinga. The phylogenetic and functional diversity patterns were coincident regarding spatial distribution and environmental hypothesis, with current climate as the leading factor. Nonetheless, the diversity of individual traits diverged qualitatively and quantitatively from the total functional diversity. These results reinforce the need to intensify the sampling efforts in the Caatinga, allow us to comprehend the effects of environmental conditions on birds assembling in ecological and evolutionary terms and, finally, warns to the problem of selecting ecological traits to describe functional diversity.