Analysis of flowers colors in a rupestrian grassland community according to pollinators' visual system

• Grant number: 17/01663-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: May 15, 2017
• End date: August 14, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Leonor Patricia Cerdeira Morellato
• Grantee: Maria Gabriela Gutierrez de Camargo
• Supervisor: Klaus-Rudolf Lunau
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), Germany
• Associated to the scholarship: 15/10754-8 - Spatio-temporal variations in the flower-color spectra according to the pollinators' visual systems, BP.PD

Abstract

Flower color is a major trait for communication between plants and their pollinators. The diversity of flower color may be the result of the selective pressure exerted by pollinators, which present a wide range of visual systems, differing in the way they perceive and select colors. Yet, flower color diversity is also related to species composition and vegetation structure, a determinant factor in naturally heterogeneous environments, as the tropical rupestrian grasslands. The campo rupestre or rupestrian grasslands encompass a mosaic of vegetation physiognomies characteristic of Brazil inside country mountain regions, with high species diversity and endemism, providing a unique natural environment to investigate flower color diversity. During the internship the postdoc researcher will analyze flowers' reflectance data of 390 species, collected in the vegetation mosaic of the Espinhaço mountain range ("Cadeia do Espinhaço") rupestrian grasslands at Serra do Cipó (Minas Gerais State, Brazil). Flower colors and contrasts against leaves background will be analyzed using the models described for each visual system of the main groups of pollinators present in the study site. The results obtained, besides being novel for the Neotropics, are the basis of the post-doctoral main project and will compose its first paper, which aims to: (i) describe the diversity of flower color patterns of the studied rupestrian grassland and compare with the patterns describe for other vegetations worldwide; and (ii) verify whether flower color and contrasts are related to their potential pollination vectors. We expect to find influence of the pollinators' visual systems in the pattern of flower color diversity of the studied rupestrian grassland. (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)

GUTIERREZ DE CAMARGO, MARIA GABRIELA; LUNAU, KLAUS; BATALHA, MARCO ANTONIO; BRINGS, SEBASTIAN; GARCIA DE BRITO, VINICIUS LOURENCO; CERDEIRA MORELLATO, LEONOR PATRICIA. How flower colour signals allure bees and hummingbirds: a community-level test of the bee avoidance hypothesis. NEW PHYTOLOGIST, v. 222, n. 2, p. 1112-1122, APR 2019. (10/51307-0, 17/01663-4, 15/10754-8, 13/50155-0, 09/54208-6)