Phytochemical divervisity associated to taxonomic and multithropic plant-insect interaction diversity of Piper plants in Atlantic forest remnants.

• Grant number: 24/00248-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2024
• End date: February 28, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Variluska Fragoso
• Grantee: Maria Fernanda Santos Marins
• Host Institution: Instituto de Pesquisas Ambientais (IPA). Secretaria de Meio Ambiente, Infraestrutura e Logística (São Paulo - Estado). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 21/07978-2 - Human impact on tropical taxonomic, genetic, phytochemical, and plant-insect interactions diversity, AP.JP

Abstract

Given their sessile nature, plants rely on insects to perform numerous ecological services. These organisms interact with each other not as fixed taxonomic entities, but as plastic functional dynamic organisms subjected to natural selection. At the interface, mediating these interactions, are numerous plant traits, especially their phytochemistry. Phytochemicals can be extremely diverse, especially in the tropics where even intraspecific variation can be high enough to influence the distribution patterns of associated insects, such as herbivores and their natural enemies. Therefore, phytochemical diversity profoundly influences insect-plant interactions and can serve as an important axis that explains the functional diversity of the environment. The study of this dimension of diversity poses as an innovative approach in order to identify, for example, potential mechanisms for maintaining diversity. This project is crucial within the frame of FAPESP Process N. 2021/07978-2 "The human impact on plant genetic and phytochemical diversity and multitrophic insect-plant interactions in the Atlantic Forest". It provides fundamental support in the first years of the planned activities which involve intense sampling effort in the field and an expressive number of samples. The objectives involve the extraction and chemical analysis of crude extracts and headspace samples in chromatography techniques, as well as the observation and generation of data in the field and the curation, cultivation of the field-collected plant and insects and pre-processing of integrative ecological analyses that will be the focus of the other projects within this grant. Finally, this project also serves as an important milestone for undergraduate students since the laboratory and field techniques required here are routine in several areas of professional activity, academic or not, and have become indispensable to a successful student profile.