Exiled flora: diversity patterns of insular vascular plant communities

• Grant number: 23/02443-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: April 01, 2023
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Botany - Phytogeography
• Principal Investigator: Fábio Pinheiro
• Grantee: Gabriel Pavan Sabino
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biologia (IB). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/02667-1 - Ecology and evolution of island plant species: the origin of Ilha de Alcatrazes flora (São Sebastião - SP), AP.PNGP.PI
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/20342-8 - Testing the island rule in Angiosperms from sky islands and true islands within megadiverse Neotropical environments, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Island environments are natural laboratories for investigating how ecological processes shape species assemblages. Isolation, well-defined boundaries, and known size make islands ideal environments for understanding how processes such as: environmental filters, competition, dispersion, and speciation modulate the structure, composition, and species diversity of communities. By adding a temporal dimension, phylogenetic diversity metrics improve inferences about such processes. However, to use this approach it is necessary to have a solid foundation concerning the classification and distribution of taxa. Thus, we will: (i) expand the floristic knowledge in island environments of the Brazilian Atlantic coast, through floristic synthesis and the inventory of an important island (Ilha dos Alcatrazes); (ii) investigate how the insular tree community is structured, comparing aspects of species richness between Alcatrazes Island and the mainland; (iii) better understand the phytogeographic relationships of insular and other coastal environments, linking how climatic and environmental characteristics drive composition and diversity patterns and, finally, (iv) investigate how and which ecological processes drive the phylogenetic structure and diversity of plant communities in these environments. Our study will contribute to the knowledge regarding the phytogeography of islands of the coast of Brazil, providing an unprecedented botanical synthesis from these environments to reveal their floristic relationships with continental formations. We will also unveil the processes and mechanisms that drive the patterns of phylogenetic structure and diversity of these islands, supporting plans for the conservation of the Atlantic Forest insular plant communities.

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)

TOLEDO, CASSIO A. P.; SOUZA, LUKAS R.; DINIZ, ADRIANA P.; SANTOS, ADRIELLE J. M.; DE ARAUJO, CARINA; GRACIANO, DIEGO S.; ARANTES, FABIULA M.; SABINO, GABRIEL P.; GUIMARAES, GABRIEL S.; ONORATO, GEOVANA DE C.; et al. Novelties to the vascular Flora of the Ibitipoca Mountains, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Biota Neotropica, v. 24, n. 2, p. 30-pg., 2024-01-01. (18/18416-2, 23/02443-9, 22/01858-8, 21/06436-1)