Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: CASSIA FERREIRA DE OLIVEIRA

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : CASSIA FERREIRA DE OLIVEIRA
DATE: 31/05/2022
TIME: 08:00
LOCAL: Google Meet
TITLE:

EVOLUTIONARY HOTSPOTS OF MYRTACEAE: A ROUTE FOR THE CONSERVATION OF THE ATLANTIC FOREST

KEY WORDS:

Atlantic Forest; Biogeography; Lineage Diversity; Phylogenetic Diversity; Phylogenetic Endemism.

PAGES: 43
BIG AREA: Ciências Biológicas
AREA: Botânica
SUMMARY:

The Atlantic Forest is one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, due to the high endemism level but also to the growing threats and fragmentation. The understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes shaping the high diversity of this domain enable the proposition of the protected areas that will contribute to the conservation of this hotspot. Myrtaceae stands out as the most diverse woody plant family in the Atlantic Forest and its richness correlates with the richnees of other taxa. It is an important family for fauna, which uses it as food resource, besides the economic importance for the society as food and in the pharmaceutical industry. In this study we aim: (1) to map metrics of evolutionary diversity of Myrtaceae to understand the evolution of the Atlantic Forest flora, and (2) to apply these metrics to determine priority sites for conservation of this hotspot. The first aim was completed and the second is ongoing. We used data from floristic studies covering 595 Myrtaceae species, at 1536 sites, with a broad sampling of the geographical space and good coverage of the environmental space of the domain. The evolutionary hotspots of Myrtaceae are concentrated in the southern portion of the Atlantic Forest, especially in southeastern Brazil. In the south of the domain, from the region above the Capricorn Tropic to the northeast of Brazil, we found areas with more derived (young) lineages and species that are more closely related to each other, while in the southernmost region of the domain, the oldest lineages are concentrated. This pattern can be explained by the existence of a stable climatic refugia in the south of the Atlantic Forest as well as by the history of expansion of this family in the South America. In Santa Teresa/ES, we found the highest phylogenetic endemism of the family, a site that harbors unique lineages, restricted to that region. The northern portion of the domain is notable for the presence of two sites with high phylogenetic endemism, the first in the coastal forests of Bahia (Salvador/BA) and the second in the interior forests of Pernambuco (Belo Jardim/PE). The phylogenetic diversity patterns of Myrtaceae corroborated with those already described for other taxa such as birds, snakes, and arthropods, which reinforces the use of Myrtaceae as a model group for macroecological and macroevolutionary analyses in the Atlantic Forest. In the final stage of this dissertation, I am working to use these evolutionary diversity metrics to propose an prioritization scheme to protect places where the evolutionary potential is high. This scheme can increase the chances of taxa responses to predicted future environmental change scenarios.

BANKING MEMBERS:
Interno - 1837921 - ALEXANDRE FADIGAS DE SOUZA
Interna - 1914239 - MIRIAM PLAZA PINTO
Presidente - 3058386 - VANESSA GRAZIELE STAGGEMEIER