Morphological and anatomical studies of the vegetative organs of Harpalyce brasiliana with emphasis on functional adaptations to the Cerrado.

• Grant number: 24/14097-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2025
• End date: June 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Botany - Plant Morphology
• Principal Investigator: Aline Redondo Martins
• Grantee: Lucas Baltazar Longhi
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia (FEIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Ilha Solteira. Ilha Solteira , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Among the various characteristics present in the Cerrado, we can highlight the presence of fire as a prominent factor in this biome. Fire, present in various biomes around the world, is a phenomenon that stimulates adaptations in plant species to survive wildfire. However, there are still few studies that can contribute to understanding how these survival dynamics occur in the Cerrado. Among these adaptations, we have the emergence of a diversity of specialized underground structures. Fire can stimulate the use of the bud bank by the plant, which is the totality of buds with the potential to be used in vegetative regeneration, a resource of great importance in the Cerrado. Therefore, the objective of this project is to study the resprouting capacity of Harpalyce brasiliana, a species of Fabaceae found in great abundance in the PNE, with the aim of contributing information on its mechanisms of survival to fire, as well as to describe its morphoanatomical aspects, which are scarce in the literature. To this end, individuals will be marked in the field and monitored before and after the fire to follow their development and branching from buds. Whole plants will also be collected in the field for laboratory analysis, where their living buds will be counted to characterize their bud bank. In addition, material from the ground and aerial parts will be fixed in FAA70, dehydrated in an ethanol series, sectioned on a sliding and rotary microtome, and stained to prepare slides for analysis under light microscopes. A portion of the collected leaves will also be used for scanning electron microscopy analysis. The morpho-anatomical data will be presented in image boards, while the data related to field growth and bud bank will be analyzed using statistical software and presented in graphs and tables.