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| Author(s): |
Vinícius Lourenço Garcia Brito
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia |
| Defense date: | 2015-01-30 |
| Examining board members: |
Marlies Sazima;
Fabian Armando Michelangeli;
Isabela Galarda Varassin;
Eliana Regina Forni Martins;
Felipe Wanderley Amorim
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| Advisor: | Marlies Sazima |
| Abstract | |
A reproductive strategy could be understood as complex of morphological and physiological traits involved in plant reproduction and, therefore, in its fitness. As the majority of species of the family Melastomataceae has poricide anthers and offers just pollen as reward to flower visitors, this pollen may face a double fate: be the male reproductive transport unit and food for flower visitors. Therefore, in plants belonging to this family, different reproductive strategies should have been favoured to solve this "pollen dilemma". In this thesis, we describe some reproductive strategies and discuss their possible causes and consequences in four different study cases. The first one is about the reproductive phenology of species of Melastomataceae occurring in the Atlantic rainforest and Cerrado formations. The second study describes the nectar and pollen dynamics in Miconia theizans and its role in favouring the increase of visitor spectra and female reproductive success. The third describes the genetic structure and diversity of populations of Tibouchina pulchra occurring in extremes of an elevational gradient with different pollination dynamics. The fourth is concerned with the floral colour change phenomenon in the same species when considering the visual apparatus of the bees. We also present a review about the cognitive ecology of pollination as an appendix to the fouth study. The results of each study case are discussed in an eco-evolutionary context and may be extrapolated to other angiosperm groups that rely on bees for their pollination and offer just pollen as reward (AU) | |