Estrutura e ecologia trófica da comunidade de beija-flores (Aves: Trochilidae) e seus recursos florais na estação ecológica de Jataí, estado de São Paulo

Abstract

Studies involving plants and their pollinators have recognized ecological and evolutionary importance. In tropical ecosystems, many species need these mutualistic interactions at some point to complete their life cycle. However, the dynamics of time can seasonally regulate interactions between species, as well as species richness and diversity. The use of the interaction network approach as an analysis tool has gained ground in ecological studies, being used for several purposes, such as testing hypotheses about complex processes that act in the structuring of the community and also assessing the relationship between these processes and community patterns. The study was divided into three chapters, where, in the first chapter, we addressed the theme of natural history and diversity of hummingbird species and their interactions with plants in the Cerrado and we obtained a significant value for the diversity of hummingbirds (n = 16). In the second part, our central objective was to assess the existence of seasonal changes in the hummingbird assemblies and to identify possible patterns of structuring these assemblies over time in response to changes in the composition and abundance of plant species that offer food resources, and we obtained as a result that during the spring it was where we found the greatest diversity of hummingbirds at the Estação Ecológica de Jataí. In the third chapter, the central objective was to assess the hummingbird / plant mutualistic interaction network in the EEJ and our result was that the network is nested, with low connectivity and modularity.