DEFAU-BIOTA: the effects of defaunation on soil carbon and plant functional diversity in the Atlantic Forest

• Grant number: 22/09561-4
• Support Opportunities: BIOTA-FAPESP Program - Regular Research Grants
• Start date: November 01, 2022
• End date: October 31, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Ecosystems Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Mauro Galetti Rodrigues
• Grantee: Mauro Galetti Rodrigues
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Jose Ignacio Fernandez de La Pradilla Villar ; Luiz Guilherme dos Santos Ribas ; Pedro Jordano
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/03147-7 - Frugivore bird diversity in the DEFAU-BIota experiment, BP.TT; 23/05946-1 - Field Guide of Seedlings of the Atlantic Forest, BP.TT; 23/04060-0 - Defaunation effects on functional traits of seedlings in the Atlantic forest, BP.TT

Abstract

Large mammalian herbivores (LMH's), once widespread, are now functional or locally extinct in most tropical ecosystems. LMH's exert strong direct and indirect effects on community structure and ecosystem functions, and measuring these effects is important for testing ecological theory and for understanding past, current, and future environmental change. This in turn requires long-term experimental manipulations, owing to the slow and often nonlinear responses of populations and assemblages to LMH removal. Since 2009, we have maintained the DEFAU-BIOTA experiment, a series of selective LMH exclosures replicated across a productivity gradient in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. The goal of the DEFAU-BIOTA experiment is to measure the effects of LMH's diversity and abundance on soil carbon and the functional traits of plants. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

PIRES, MATHIAS M.; GALETTI, MAURO. Beyond the ?empty forest?: The defaunation syndromes of Neotropical forests in the Anthropocene. GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION, v. 41, p. 9-pg., 2023-01-01. (19/25478-7, 22/09561-4)