Birds of the Reserva Biológica do Mato Grande and surroundings, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

The Reserva Biológica do Mato Grande encompasses 5,161 hectares of wetlands, restinga forests and grasslands in southern Brazil. Aiming to assemble a list of bird species occurring in the reserve, we carried out 21 monthly expeditions from July 2007 to March 2009 and an additional visit on October 2014, totaling 341 hours of sampling. We additionally searched for records in online databases and museums. In total, 211 species of birds were found, compared to 223.83 (SD = 3.88) and 214.68 (SD = 4.71) species respectively predicted through Jackknife 2 and Chao 2 estimations. Plegadis chihi was the most abundant bird roosting in the reserve. The area is important for the conservation of Circus cinereus, Spartonoica maluroides, Limnoctites rectirostris and Sporophila palustris, which are considered threatened or near-threatened in state, national and/or global levels. We emphasize the urgent need of implementing the Reserva Biológica do Mato Grande in order to conserve the regional avifauna

Plant-hummingbird interactions and temporal nectar availability in a <i>arestinga </i>from Brazil

ABSTRACT Hummingbirds are the most important and specialized group of pollinating birds in the Neotropics and their interactions with plants are key components to many communities. In the present study we identified the assemblage of plants visited by hummingbirds and investigated the temporal availability of floral resources in an area of restinga, sandy plain coastal vegetation associated with the Atlantic forest, in Southeastern Brazil. We recorded flower and nectar features, flowering phenology and interactions between plants and hummingbirds and estimated the amount of calories produced per hectare from June 2005 to August 2006. Ten plant species were visited by two hummingbirds,Amazilia fimbriata and Eupetomena macroura. Resource availability was highly variable among plant species and over time. Nectar volume and concentration per flower were similar to other Neotropical hummingbird-visited plant assemblages. The estimated nectar resource availability between months varied from 0.85 to 5.97 Kcal per hectare/day, demanding an area between one and 6.8 ha to support a single hummingbird. Our study reports an unusual tropical setting where almost all interactions between hummingbirds and plants were performed by a single hummingbird species,A. fimbriata. Hence, the variable nectar availability is probably influencing hummingbird movements, its foraging area, and consequently plant pollination

Pollination And Breeding System Of Canna Paniculata (cannaceae) In A Montane Atlantic Rainforest: Asymmetric Dependence On A Hermit Hummingbird

We studied the pollination biology of Canna paniculata (Cannaceae), a plant species common in the Atlantic Rainforest of southeastern Brazil. The species presents specialized ornithophilous flowers, which in our study area are solely pollinated by the hermit hummingbird Phaethornis eurynome. Although C. paniculata is capable of bearing fruit after self-pollination, it requires pollinators for reproduction. We discuss the importance of hermit hummingbirds for the reproduction of specialized ornithophilous plants such as C. paniculata, including their asymmetric dependence on hermit hummingbirds - core pollinators in Neotropical forest ecosystems.291157160Cronk, Q., Ojeda, I., Bird-pollinated flowers in an evolutionary and molecular context (2008) Journal of Experimental Botany, 59, pp. 715-727Glinos, E., Cocucci, A.A., Pollination biology of Canna indica (Cannaceae) with particular reference to the functional morphology of the style (2011) Plant Systematics and Evolution, 291, pp. 49-58Justino, D.G., Maruyama, P.K., Oliveira, P.E., Floral resource availability and hummingbird territorial behaviour on a Neotropical savanna shrub (2012) Journal of Ornithology, 153, pp. 189-197Kay, K.M., Schemske, D.W., Pollinator assemblages and visitation rates for 11 species of Neotropical Costus (Costaceae) (2003) Biotropica, 35, pp. 198-207Maruyama, P.K., Oliveira, G.M., Ferreira, C., Dalsgaard, B., Oliveira, P.E., Pollination syndromes ignored: Importance of non-ornithophilous flowers to Neotropical savanna hummingbirds (2013) Naturwissenschaften, 100, pp. 1061-1068Maruyama, P.K., Vizentin-Bugoni, J., Oliveira, G.M., Oliveira, P.E., Dalsgaard, B., Morphological and spatio-temporal mismatches shape a Neotropical savanna plant-hummingbird network (2014) Biotropica, 46, pp. 740-747Matallana, G., Godinho, M.A.S., Guilherme, F.A.G., Belisario, M., Coser, T.S., Wendt, T., Breeding systems of Bromeliaceae species: Evolution of selfing in the context of sympatric occurrence (2010) Plant Systematics and Evolution, 289, pp. 57-67McGuire, J.A., Witt, C.C., Remsen, J.V., Jr., Molecular phylogenetics and the diversification of hummingbirds (2014) Current Biology, 24, pp. 910-916Prince, L.M., Phylogenetic relationships and species delimitation in Canna (Cannaceae) (2010) Diversity, phylogeny, and evolution in the monocotyledons, pp. 307-331. , Seberg O, Petersen G, Barfod AS, Davis J. (eds.) Aarhus, Aarhus University PressSakai, S., Kato, M., Inoue, T., Three pollination guilds and variation in floral characteristics of Bornean gingers (Zingiberaceae and Costaceae) (1999) American Journal of Botany, 86, pp. 646-658Sazima, I., Buzato, S., Sazima, M., The saw-billed hermit Ramphodon naevius and its flowers in southeastern Brazil (1995) Journal of Ornithology, 136, pp. 195-206Schmidt-Lebuhn, A.N., Kessler, M., Hensen, I., Hummingbirds as drivers of plant speciation? (2007) Trends in Plant Science, 12, pp. 329-331Stiles, F.G., Ecology, flowering phenology, and hummingbird pollination of some Costa Rican Heliconia species (1975) Ecology, 56, pp. 285-301Vizentin-Bugoni, J., Maruyama, P.K., Sazima, M., Processes entangling interactions in communities: Forbidden links are more important than abundance in a hummingbird-plant network (2014) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281Wolowski, M., Saad, C.F., Ashman, T.L., Freitas, L., Predominance of selfcompatibility in hummingbird-pollinated plants in the Neotropics (2013) Naturwissenschaften, 100, pp. 69-7

Are native bees and Apis mellifera equally efficient pollinators of the rupestrian grassland daisy Aspilia jolyana (Asteraceae)?

Most angiosperms rely on animals for pollination, and insects, especially bees, are the most frequent pollinators. Many native Neotropical plants are frequently visited by the invasive honeybee (Apis mellifera), but its role in the pollination of these plants has been little investigated. We assessed the contribution of various floral visitors, including native bees and the honeybee, on the pollination of a generalist rupestrian grassland daisy, Aspilia jolyana (Asteraceae), in Serra do Cipó, Espinhaço Mountain Range, Brazil. We recorded floral visitors and measured the seed set resulting from one single visitation. We observed a total of 442 visits, mostly by bees, with Bombus pauloensis and Apis mellifera being the most common floral visitors. Other visitors included many other species of bees, flies, hummingbirds, wasps and butterflies. Pollinators significantly increased seed set in comparison to non-visited (bagged) capitula. Moreover, there was no difference among bee species/groups in their contribution to seed set. Thus, A. jolyana benefits from its generalized pollination strategy, and frequent bee visitors, including several native species and the invasive honeybee, are equally effective pollinators for this generalist daisy of rupestrian grassland

Niche and neutral processes leave distinct structural imprints on indirect interactions in mutualistic networks

This is the final version. Available on open access from Wiley via the DOI in this recordData availability: All data used in this analysis are publicly available from https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.dncjsxkw2 (Sonne et al., 2020a, 2020b)Indirect interactions are central to ecological and evolutionary dynamics in pollination communities, yet we have little understanding about the processes determining patterns of indirect interactions, such as those between pollinators through shared flowering plants. Instead, research has concentrated on the processes responsible for direct interactions and whole-network structures. This is partly due to a lack of appropriate tools for characterising indirect interaction structures, because traditional network metrics discard much of this information. The recent development of tools for counting motifs (subnetworks depicting interactions between a small number of species) in bipartite networks enable detailed analysis of indirect interaction patterns. Here we generate plant-hummingbird pollination networks based on three major assembly processes – neutral effects (species interacting in proportion to abundance), morphological matching and phenological overlap – and evaluate the motifs associated with each one. We find that different processes produce networks with significantly different patterns of indirect interactions. Neutral effects tend to produce densely-connected motifs, with short indirect interaction chains, and motifs where many specialists interact indirectly through a single generalist. Conversely, niche-based processes (morphology and phenology) produced motifs with a core of interacting generalists, supported by peripheral specialists. These results have important implications for understanding the processes determining indirect interaction structures.Royal Commission 1851Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)Danish National Research Foundatio

First records of Casiornis rufus (Vieillot, 1816) (Aves, Tyrannidae) for the state of Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil

The Rufous Casiornis, Casiornis rufus (Vielliot, 1916), is widespread in central South America, reaching its southernmost distribution in northern Argentina and Uruguay. Here we present the first nine records of the species for Rio Grande do Sul state, southern Brazil. The records were documented with photographs and consisted mostly of lone individuals observed in riparian forests inserted in a matrix of grasslands and rice fields. The Rufous Casiornis apparently occurs in very low densities in the region. More observations are needed to elucidate its status of occurrence in Rio Grande do Sul

Interações Planta-polinizador Em Vegetação De Altitude Na Mata Atlântica

Tropical high-altitude vegetation is unique due to susceptibility to severe weather conditions in relation to lower formations, and by the peculiarity of its flora with many relictual components. Studies on plant-pollinator interactions in high-altitude rocky outcrops and forests of the Atlantic Forest are scarce, but compilation of information allows us to identify some patterns: low frequency of visits, high floral longevity and generalized pollination system. In tropical mountain ecosystems, the degree of generalization of pollination systems in functional (pollinator groups) and ecological (number of species) terms tends to be high, mainly due to the over-representation of certain plant taxa (e.g., Asteraceae in rocky outcrops and Fabaceae, Myrtaceae, Rubiaceae and Sapindaceae in montane forests). Generalized pollination systems and autogamy may be advantageous for tropical high-altitude plants due to the more severe weather conditions (e.g., low temperature), which decrease abundance and limit the activity of pollinators, resulting in lower visitation frequency. Nevertheless, some well represented groups in forests, such as orchids and plants pollinated by hummingbirds and bats, exemplify cases of higher functional specialization, as well as plants with poricidal anthers pollinated by bees in the high-altitude grasslands. However, in rocky outcrops, for some functional groups of pollinators (e.g., hummingbirds, bats, beetles and hawkmoths), the availability of resources does not allow the maintenance of all species throughout the year, favoring possible local or altitudinal migrations. Thus, rocky outcrops and high-altitude forests constitute a unit in the sense of sustaining the pollinator community. Indeed rocky outcrops and high-altitude forests share an evolutionary history at the regional scale since they passed through similar events of expansion and retraction in response to climate changes in the Quaternary. This could explain the complementarity between the two types of vegetation in the use of floral resources by pollinators. Besides the associations identified here, the ecology and evolution of plant-pollinator interactions in high-altitude vegetation of the Atlantic Forest remain poorly understood, making urgent the development of an integrative research program, as well as projects on issues related to climate change and biodiversity conservation. © 2016, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). All rights reserved.20272

Birds of the Parque Ecológico Lagoa da Fazenda, Sobral, Ceará state, northeastern Brazil

Natural areas within cities are important as they contribute to maintain biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems. In Ceará state, inventories of birds in human-impacted areas are still scarce. Here, we inventory bird species and estimate the species richness at Parque Ecológico Lagoa da Fazenda, an urban park in the municipality of Sobral, in northeastern Brazil. We found 82 bird species, of which 16 breed in the area, three are endemics, and three others are introduced. Despite the moderate species richness detected, richness estimators revealed that sampling was sufficient to detect most species. To maintain or even increase local species richness, we suggest the cessation of urban expansion within the park, sewage dumping, and filling of the wetland, as well as further planting of native vegetation