Local and regional coexistence of atmospheric bromeliads in epiphyte communities: unraveling intra and interspecific mechanisms of competition among species with highly overlapping niches

• Grant number: 17/01559-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: May 01, 2017
• End date: October 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology - Theoretical Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Davi Rodrigo Rossatto
• Grantee: Cleber Juliano Neves Chaves
• Supervisor: Uta Berger
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden), Germany
• Associated to the scholarship: 16/04396-4 - COMMUNITIES DOMINATED BY ATMOSPHERIC BROMELIADS AS A MODEL FOR METACOMMUNITIES STUDIES, BP.DR

Abstract

The coexistence among species is often due to environment heterogeneity and trade-offs generated by differences in species' life history, as those related to dispersion capacity and competitive skills. Epiphytic communities are one of the best examples of the space as limiting resource in tropics, due to the massive amount of these plants on tropical canopies. Communities dominated by atmospheric bromeliads, in special, could be a good model to test relations of coexistence and intra and interspecific competition, due firstly to the occurrence of massive populations of some species on a few trees, and secondly to they unabsortive and, consequently, uncompetitive roots, excluding the bias of belowground competition. The aim of this study is to unravel the competitive strategies of three common atmospheric bromeliad species with distinct life histories that have a wide distribution in South America and coexist massively in natural and human-impacted areas of the Brazilian Cerrado domain. We will study the interactions among these species in two hierarchical levels: local (on a single tree) and regional (on a group of trees) using natural communities, controlled experiments and Individual Based Models (IBMs). With these models, will test the significance of the empirical patterns under distinct densities of each species and many generations. We also aim to calculate, on regional level, the effects of distinct functional types of host trees, with distinct tree densities (i.e. habitat amount) and composition (i.e. habitat heterogeneity), on the dynamic of a metacommunity dominated by atmospheric bromeliads. With these relatively new and modern approaches, we intend to achieve interesting results in a poorly explored topic of ecology (i.e. competition among epiphytes) which could provide important insights regarding plant interaction overall and also on conservation ecology of tropical forests. (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)

NEVES CHAVES, CLEBER JULIANO; SANTOS LEAL, BARBARA SIMOES; ROSSATTO, DAVI RODRIGO; BERGER, UTA; PALMA-SILVA, CLARISSE. Deforestation is the turning point for the spreading of a weedy epiphyte: an IBM approach. SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, v. 11, n. 1, OCT 14 2021. (14/08087-0, 17/01559-2, 16/04396-4)