RELATIVE CONTRIBUTION OF LANDSCAPE STRUCTURE AND HABITAT QUALITY ON PLANT COMMUNITY DIVERSITY

• Grant number: 22/09074-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: December 01, 2022
• End date: March 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Ecology
• Principal Investigator: Milton Cezar Ribeiro
• Grantee: Lisiane da Silva Mendes Murilo
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/10195-0 - Contribution of payment for ecosystem services on multi-dimensions within Atlantic Forest, AP.TEM

Abstract

Although the effects of fragmentation on the plant community can be influenced by the quantity and quality of the remaining vegetation, proximity to the forest edge and the surrounding matrix, few studies have focused on understanding and quantifying these influences. At the same time, the term "habitat quality" has been used in many studies involving landscape ecology; however, there is a great heterogeneity of concepts that the authors use to define habitat quality, in the same way that there is great variety in the way of measuring it. This research project is divided into two study groups; in the first, we will review the literature, generating a synthesis on studies involving habitat and landscape quality; in the second, which will involve the collection of vegetation data in the field and modeling, having the Cantareira Mantiqueira Corridor region as the focus of study. Three research questions were formulated: 1. How is habitat quality being conceptualized and measured in published studies involving landscape ecology? 2. How does forest cover (%), functional and structural connectivity, and the surrounding matrix influence the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of tree vegetation? 3. How does the landscape structure, the surrounding matrix and the habitat quality estimated by the "Invest" software model contribute to explain the habitat quality indicators obtained from the vegetation structure? With this we hope to present the state of the art on how habitat quality has been treated in the literature, at the same time we will answer how landscape structure can explain vegetation structure, and how this relationship can be related to habitat quality in yourself.