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| Author(s): |
Mauro Teixeira Junior
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Biociências (IBIOC/SB) |
| Defense date: | 2010-08-17 |
| Examining board members: |
Miguel Trefaut Urbano Rodrigues;
Marcio Roberto Costa Martins;
Ricardo Jannini Sawaya
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| Advisor: | Miguel Trefaut Urbano Rodrigues |
| Abstract | |
Dry Forests are environments extremely endangered, considered one of the most en-dangered ecosystems of the world. The lack of knowledge, together with intense anth-ropic pressure, contributes to this threat, and without this knowledge it is impossible to perform conservational actions to protect this habitat. At Paranã region dry forests revealed species shared with Caatinga, what is in agreement with the hypothesis of broader occurrence in the past. At Peruaçu region, among those species found at the dry forests and at its physiognomies, such as carrasco, there are species shared with the Atlantic Forest (Enyalius pictus) and those associated with this dry habitats from Planalto dos Gerais (Stenocercus quinarius). At Peruaçu region these species had a strong association with these habitats, as they show at other localities. These natural history features determine its occurrence locally as well as regionally, which results in dispersions during suitable climatic conditions for habitat expansion and isolation dur-ing habitat fragmentation. Therefore E. pictus could disperse between dry and wet forests, reaching Peruaçu region, also agreeing with the hypothesis of broader occur-rence of dry forests in the past, however indicated a connection with Atlantic Forest and not with Caatinga. This wider occurrence in the past is also observed in the distri-butional range of S. quinarius restricted today to small isolated fragments of denser vegetation along Planalto dos Gerais. These results indicate an extremely necessity for more species inventories, and records of their natural history associated with dry for-est, to improve our knowledge on it, to help the understanding of its biogeographical history and delineate priority areas for conservation within its distributional range. (AU) | |