Interações formiga-planta nos campos rupestres: diversidade, estrutura e dinâmica temporal
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Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
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Tese de doutorado
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Fernando A. Oliveira e Silveira
Ricardo R. de Castro Solar
Thiago Junqueira Izzo
Sebastian Felipe Sendoya
Ricardo R. de Castro Solar
Thiago Junqueira Izzo
Sebastian Felipe Sendoya
Resumo
Ant-plant associations are an outstanding model to study the entangled ecological interactions
that structure communities. However, most studies of plant-animal networks focus on only
one type of resource that mediates these interactions (e.g, nectar or fruits), leading to a biased
understanding of community structure. New approaches, however, have made possible to
study several interaction types simultaneously through multilayer networks models. Here, we use this approach to ask whether the structural patterns described to date for ant-plant networks hold when multiple interactions with plant-derived food rewards are considered. We tested whether networks characterized by different resource types differ in specialization and
resource partitioning among ants, and whether the identity of the core ant species is similar
among resource types. We monitored ant interactions with extrafloral nectaries, flowers, and
fruits, as well as trophobiont hemipterans feeding on plants, for one year, in seven rupestrian
grassland (campo rupestre) sites in southeastern Brazil. We found a highly tangled ant-plant
network in which plants offering different resource types are connected by a few central ant species. The multilayer network had low modularity and specialization, but ant specialization
and niche overlap differed according to the type of resource used. Beyond detecting structural
differences across networks, our study demonstrates empirically that the core of most central ant species is similar across them. We suggest that foraging strategies of ant species, such as
massive recruitment, may determine specialization and resource partitioning in ant-plant
interactions. As this core of ant species is involved in multiple ecosystem functions, it may
drive the diversity and evolution of the entire campo rupestre community.
Abstract
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Ecologia, Formigas, Plantas
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Ecologia
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