Formigas em bromélias: efeitos em cascata sobre a diversidade de artrópodes, ciclagem de nutrientes e ecofisiologia das plantas hospedeiras

Author(s)

Ana Zangirólame Gonçalves

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia
• Defense date: 2016-01-29

Examining board members

Gustavo Quevedo Romero; André Victor Lucci Freitas; Fernando Rodrigues da Silva; Alexander Vicente Christianini; Sebastian Felipe Sendoya Echeverry

• Advisor: Gustavo Quevedo Romero; Paulo Sergio Moreira Carvalho de Oliveira

Abstract

The most commonly top-down effect associated in designing communities and food webs is predation. Predators can consume their prey, but their presence in the environment can alter the morphology, behavior and habitat use by prey. Ecological studies have considered the identity of predators and their body size in determining their roles in ecosystems. Since more than 80% of animals have complex life cycles in more than one ecosystem, predators that feed on these organisms can cause cross-ecosystem cascade effects. Bromeliaceae are among the most common plants used as a shelter for ants in the Neotropics and also are occupied by numerous terrestrial and aquatic metazoans, which many of them have complex life cycles. Since Odontomachus hastatus, Gnamptogenys moelleri and Camponotus crassus establish their nests in Vriesea procera and Quesnelia arvensis, they may change the diversity of species in terrestrial and aquatic bromeliad ecosystems through predation. As a result, these ants can cause cross-ecosystem effects and may change ecosystem processes in bromeliads (e.g., nutrient cycling and nutrient availability for plants). In this study, we surveyed in the field and developed greenhouse and field experiments using isotopic and physiological methods to investigate, in the first chapter, how each ant species contributes to the nutrition and development of its host plant through nest debris. In the second chapter, we investigated the effect of O. hastatus on the terrestrial and aquatic diversity of metazoans in V. procera bromeliads at three different localities of the Atlantic Forest. In the third chapter, we investigated the effect of the three ant species on the aquatic diversity of metazoans, on the detritus processing and nutrient cycling from detritus to bromeliads. Our results demonstrate that ants, especially O. hastatus, affected the diversity of aquatic metazoans, and O. hastatus contributed more to the nutrition and development its host bromeliads (Vriesea procera and Quesnelia arvensis) through nest debris. On the other hand, C. crassus favored the processing of organic matter and nitrogen flow from detritus to Q. arvensis bromeliads through the tank (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 11/10137-8 - Ants in bromeliads: cascading effects on arthropod diversity, nutrient cycling and ecophysiology of host plants
• Grantee: Ana Zangirólame Gonçalves
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate