Study of edaphic and epigeic communities as self-organized complex systems

• Grant number: 13/06196-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2013
• End date: August 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Ecosystems Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Alexandre Souto Martinez
• Grantee: Fernando Meloni
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/00631-3 - Organizational general patterns of edaphic-epigeic community and the evaluation of its indicator value to prevent catastrophic shifts in Mediterranean drylands under desertification, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

Ecosystems are highly complex and characterized by interactions among environmental conditions, stochastic events and the organisms. All these variables interacting over the space-time scales make the functioning of ecosystems hard to understand. In this context, the arrangement of communities is very important because it promotes the functioning of ecological processes. However, there are many gaps in knowledge about emerging standards of biological organization, because classic methods for diversity assessment do not allow evaluating important aspects of the communities' interactions. Thus, complex systems theory has good potential for detection of hidden standards in communities and their modules, allowing deduce about how the ecological processes are driven by the biodiversity arrangement. Nutrient cycling and plant nutrient are very important ecological processes related to soil mediated by organisms living in soil. These organisms, mainly Arthropod groups, are high diverse and sensitive to environmental changes, but their structure and ecological organization are still little known. Hence, the present research project aims to use the complex systems methods to improve the knowledge about edaphic-epigeic Arthropod communities. It will compare the arrangement of communities from sites under different restoration levels and located in two soil conditions, fertile and under desertification process, trying to find how the structure of community are related to the functioning of soil ecological processes. The specific objectives are (1) to determine a common functional structure of edaphic-epigeic Arthropod communities, by identification of a fractal standard of species arrangement, (2) to determine how the system entropy makes influence on communities' structure. It is expected to produce advances in comprehension about general soil and litter fauna colonization and structuring through restoration process, allowing infer how the organisms arrangement are related to functioning of ecological processes. This knowledge may have many applications in related areas, as forest engineering, environmental engineering, agronomy, restoration ecology, also helping the efforts for reversion of the desertification process in dry lands.

Scientific publications

(8)

(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)

MELONI, FERNANDO; MARTINEZ, ALEXANDRE SOUTO. Soil arthropods indicate the range of plant facilitation on the soil of Mediterranean drylands. Theoretical Ecology, JAN 2021. (13/06196-4)

CABELLA, BRENNO; MELONI, FERNANDO; MARTINEZ, ALEXANDRE S.. Inadequate Sampling Rates Can Undermine the Reliability of Ecological Interaction Estimation. MATHEMATICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL APPLICATIONS, v. 24, n. 2, JUN 2019. (13/06196-4)

MELONI, FERNANDO; VARANDA, ELENICE M.. Litter and soil arthropod colonization in reforested semi-deciduous seasonal Atlantic forests. RESTORATION ECOLOGY, v. 23, n. 5, p. 690-697, SEP 2015. (13/06196-4)

MELONI, FERNANDO; MARTINEZ, ALEXANDRE SOUTO. Soil arthropods indicate the range of plant facilitation on the soil of Mediterranean drylands. Theoretical Ecology, v. 14, n. 2, p. 303-319, JUN 2021. (13/06196-4)

MELONI, FERNANDO; CIVIETA, BERTA F.; ZARAGOZA, JUAN A.; LOURDES MORAZA, MARIA; BAUTISTA, SUSANA. Vegetation Pattern Modulates Ground Arthropod Diversity in Semi-Arid Mediterranean Steppes. INSECTS, v. 11, n. 1, JAN 2020. (13/06196-4, 14/00631-3)

MELONI, FERNANDO; FABRI GRANZOTTI, CRISTIANO ROBERTO; BAUTISTA, SUSANA; MARTINEZ, ALEXANDRE SOUTO. Scale dependence and patch size distribution: clarifying patch patterns in Mediterranean drylands. ECOSPHERE, v. 8, n. 2, FEB 2017. (13/06196-4, 14/00631-3)

MELONI, FERNANDO; NAKAMURA, GILBERTO M.; GRANZOTTI, CRISTIANO R. F.; MARTINEZ, ALEXANDRE S.. Vegetation cover reveals the phase diagram of patch patterns in drylands. PHYSICA A-STATISTICAL MECHANICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS, v. 534, NOV 15 2019. (13/06196-4, 14/00631-3)

ALVES FERNANDES, EDUARDO FELIPE; MELONI, FERNANDO; BORELLA, JULIO CEZAR; LOPES, NORBERTO PEPORINE. Effect of fertilisation and harvest period on polar metabolites of Calendula oficcinalis. REVISTA BRASILEIRA DE FARMACOGNOSIA-BRAZILIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACOGNOSY, v. 23, n. 5, p. 731-735, SEP-OCT 2013. (09/51812-0, 13/06196-4, 09/00940-8)