Full text
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| Author(s): |
Gabriela Cristina Gomes
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Biologia |
| Defense date: | 2014-02-19 |
| Examining board members: |
João Vasconcellos Neto;
Mário Almeida Neto;
Everton Tizo Pedroso
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| Advisor: | João Vasconcellos Neto; Valmir Antonio Costa |
| Abstract | |
In communities, trophic relationships between organisms are rarely linear, being common an extensive network of interactions. In systems involving three trophic levels, such as plants, herbivores and predators/parasitoids, it can be triggered a trophic cascade from top to bottom, with positive indirect effects of the third trophic level in the producers population, or a cascade upwards through the producers, influencing the higher trophic levels. The flower heads of Composite (plants of family Asteraceae), comprise "miniature ecosystems", with several tritrophic interactions, i.e. protection for endophagous herbivores, subject to predation and specialized parasitism. Because they are important components in complex trophic systems which little is known, it was necessary the investigation of the tritrophic interactions between Trichogoniopsis adenantha, flower heads endophagous and associated parasitoids. This study was conducted in Serra do Japi, Jundiaí-SP, where it has been done the monthly collection of the phenology of T. adenantha, collection of flower heads for counting and sorting of endophagous herbivores and parasitoids, analysis of the attack rates, analysis of the population dynamics of each system component, analysis of the relationships with climate variables and synchrony between the populations, and the analysis of total fertilized seeds in intact flower heads, with endophagous and/or parasitoids. T. adenantha have seasonality for vegetative and reproductive branches, with peaks in autumn, but not related to the climatic variables. However, each phenophase of the flower heads has presented seasonality with influences of the climate variables. The Trupanea sp. (Diptera, Tephritidae) population peak occurred during the reproductive phase of T. adenantha, when the availability of flower heads is larger. On the other hand, the Melanagromyza neotropica (Diptera, Agromyzidae) population peak occurred in December. However, the population peak of both endophagous occurred when the availability of floral buds was low. Thus, the plant uses a strategy to compensate the herbivory, since the high production of flower heads exceeds the demand and quenches the herbivores. Moreover, the peak of production of flower buds occurred in the cold period, when the populations of endophagous are low, as phenological strategy of escape in time to avoid the attack of the endophagous to floral buds forming. However, the plant also uses biotic factors to complement the defense strategies, such as spiders and parasitoids, highly synchronized to their hosts. These natural enemies work together in this system, because only Trupanea sp. is captured by spiders, but those who escape from this attack expose their offspring to parasitoids; with Trupanea sp population falling, decreases the competition with M. neotropica, which will have a population growth, but this endophagous has a larger number of species of parasitoids, being their unique natural enemies in the system. The presence of parasitized larvae in flower heads resulted in the lowest average of fertilized seeds, but the amount of fertilized seeds showed no relationship with the abundance of parasitoids or endophagous, due to the relationship with climatic factors. It was concluded that the effects of "top-down" and "bottom-up" act jointly in system T. adenantha ¿ endophagous herbivores - parasitoids, being of great importance in system maintenance and eliminating the effects of the herbivory of endophagous (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 10/14437-3 - Study of tritrophic interactions in the system Trichogoniopsis adenantha (DC) (Asteracea), its herbivores endophagous and parasitoids associated |
| Grantee: | Gabriela Cristina Gomes |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |