Linking phenotype to ecosystem services: how the phenotypic variation influences seed dispersal in the Atlantic Forest

• Grant number: 24/00488-8
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2025
• End date: February 29, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Ana Paula Aprígio Assis
• Grantee: Ana Paula Aprígio Assis
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Marília Palumbo Gaiarsa ; Matthew Craig Hutchinson ; Mauro Galetti Rodrigues ; Paulo Roberto Guimarães Junior

Abstract

Intraspecific morphological variation is both the fuel for evolution and essential to understand how individuals establish and perform interspecific interactions. The unprecedented biodiversity crisis leads us in a tight spot if we want to understand 1) if populations can cope with rapid environmental change and 2) the impact of the decrease of populations' morphological variation in the potential to interact with other species and perform important ecosystem services. This project will quantify the amount of morphological variation in functional traits of a Neotropical bird species, which are important to the establishment and success of seed dispersal interactions in Chiroxiphia caudata (Passeriformes). Then we will link this variation to the extent of a species geographical distribution, to see how this is structured geographically. From an evolutionary point of view, morphological variation is important because it determines if a species can respond to novel selective pressures and evolve. In this sense, morphological variation can be used as proxy to quantify the evolutionary potential of the population. We will use field sampling to gather the morphological data and quantify the evolutionary potential of different populations. Finally, we will use metabarcoding from feces of the field sampled specimens to gather the breadth of individual dietary niche. The proposed project is highly innovative since it combines a framework from quantitative genetics and community ecology. Its novel results will go beyond the state-of-the-art knowledge on species interactions and morphological variation in tropical forests, and it will also be one of the first projects to link species evolutionary potential to their interacting partners and ecosystem service. (AU)