Flowering phenology and plant-pollinator interactions in a grassland community of Southern Brazil

Oleques, Suiane Santos; Overbeck, Gerhard Ernst; Avia, Rubem Samuel de

doi:10.1016/j.flora.2017.02.024

Cited by 19 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The most representative orders of floral visitors across all networks were Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, and Diptera ( Figure 3B), which is in agreement with previous findings considering community networks of floral visitors in grassland ecosystems [41]. Nearly all of our sampled networks presented a nested structure, which also agrees with the recurrent topological pattern described for mutualistic (especially plant-pollinator) networks [17].…”

Section: Interaction Networksupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Even with all the diversity of ecosystems present in Brazil, the majority of research on ecological networks comes from forest ecosystems. To our knowledge, only three previous works focused on community-wide, plant-pollinator mutualistic networks from grassland ecosystems in Brazil, none of which were carried out in urban landscapes [40][41][42]. The South Brazilian grasslands (Campos Sulinos grasslands) are a promising system to study animal-plant relationships due to their high diversity and richness in both taxonomic levels [41,43].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To our knowledge, only three previous works focused on community-wide, plant-pollinator mutualistic networks from grassland ecosystems in Brazil, none of which were carried out in urban landscapes [40][41][42]. The South Brazilian grasslands (Campos Sulinos grasslands) are a promising system to study animal-plant relationships due to their high diversity and richness in both taxonomic levels [41,43]. Moreover, this ecosystem is not adequately protected under current conservation policies [43], and when protected areas include grassland systems, these policies are usually guided towards the complete removal of disturbances [44].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Influence of Urbanization and Fire Disturbance on Plant-floral Visitor Mutualistic Networks

et al. 2020

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The biodiversity loss resulting from rising levels of human impacts on ecosystems has been extensively discussed over the last years. The expansion of urban areas promotes drastic ecological changes, especially through fragmentation of natural areas. Natural grassland remnants surrounded by an urban matrix are more likely to undergo disturbance events. Since grassland ecosystems are closely related to disturbances such as fire and grazing, grassland plant communities, pollinators, and their interaction networks may be especially sensitive to urban expansion, because it promotes habitat fragmentation and modifies disturbance regimes. This work evaluated the effect of the level of urbanization and recent history of fire disturbance on grassland plants communities and plant-floral visitor mutualistic networks. We sampled plant communities and floral visitors in 12 grassland sites with different levels of urbanization and time since the last fire event. Sites with higher levels of urbanization showed higher values for plant species richness, floral visitor richness, and network asymmetry. All sampled networks were significantly nested (with one exception), asymmetric, and specialized. In addition, all networks presented more modules than expected by chance. The frequency of fire disturbance events increased with the level of urbanization. Since grassland ecosystems depend on disturbances to maintain their structure and diversity, we inferred that the history of fire disturbance was the mechanism behind the relationship between urbanization and our biological descriptors. Our findings highlight the importance of small and isolated grassland remnants as conservation assets within urban areas, and that the disturbance events that such sites are submitted to may in fact be what maintains their diversity on multiple levels.

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Section: Interaction Networksupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Influence of Urbanization and Fire Disturbance on Plant-floral Visitor Mutualistic Networks

et al. 2020

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“…In particular, rainy periods can increase plant yield and consequently seed abundance and/or seed germination (Gutiérrez & Merseve 2003;Pol et al 2014). Phenological studies are still rare for our system (for example, Oleques et al 2017), and information about seed production in vegetation is missing for South Brazilian grasslands.…”

Section: Relations Between Ssb Sampling Periods and Ssb Typementioning

confidence: 99%

Soil seed bank in a subtropical grassland under different grazing intensities

Silva

Overbeck

2020

Acta Bot. Bras.

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Grazing is an important determinant for the composition and structure of grasslands; however, soil seed bank (SSB) response to grazing intensity is poorly investigated. We analyzed SSB richness and density in a subtropical grassland in southern Brazil with different forage offers (low, intermediate, high and very high), that is, contrasting grazing intensities. The SSB was evaluated by the seedling emergence method. We collected ten SSB samples at two layers (0-5 and 5-10 cm) in spring and autumn in each of grazing intensity treatments. We surveyed the established vegetation to assess its similarity with the SSB. Treatment effects were analyzed by Poisson regression while compositional differences were visualized by ordination. We found 103 species in the SSB, of which 71 were also found in established vegetation. We found a positive correlation between SSB density and grazing intensity. High grazing intensity influences patterns of composition and dominance in the SSB, while no strong differences were found among the other treatments. The SSB was characterized by low participation of dominant grasses in the vegetation and the dominance of ruderal species, indicating that recovery from the SSB after total removal of vegetation (severe disturbance) may be limited in grasslands in the region.

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“…many species from the Asteraceae flowering late in the season (e.g. Oleques et al 2017). The implications for vegetation sampling in the region are clear: depending on the timing of sampling, some species are not easily detectable, which may produce differences in the description of vegetation composition.…”

Section: Vegetation Varies In Time: When To Sample?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Grassland vegetation sampling - a practical guide for sampling and data analysis

et al. 2019

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Grassland and savanna ecosystems are the original vegetation types of more than 30% of the Brazilian territory, but conservation and training of future professionals has largely focused on forests. In fact, no standard protocols exist for sampling grassland vegetation for environmental planning or licensing. Neglecting non-forest ecosystems may have deleterious consequences for the maintenance of biodiversity and the provisioning of ecosystem services. Herein, we provide practical guidelines on how to conceive and develop ecological studies of grassland vegetation for scientific, monitoring or technical purposes. Using examples mostly from southern Brazil, we explain and discuss the various components of the research process, from the question to be investigated to defining and implementing the sampling design, performing data analyses and presenting the results. Our guidelines should prove useful for training technicians and researchers working on grassland ecosystems and other non-forest ecosystems in Brazil and surrounding regions.

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Flowering phenology and plant-pollinator interactions in a grassland community of Southern Brazil

Cited by 19 publications

References 33 publications

The Influence of Urbanization and Fire Disturbance on Plant-floral Visitor Mutualistic Networks

The Influence of Urbanization and Fire Disturbance on Plant-floral Visitor Mutualistic Networks

Soil seed bank in a subtropical grassland under different grazing intensities

Grassland vegetation sampling - a practical guide for sampling and data analysis

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