Life in the Cerrado, Volume 2: Pollination and Seed Dispersal A South American Tropical Seasonal Ecosystem

About this book

The book treats the cerrado (one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the world), a large-scale South American vegetation, its formation and origin, its plants and their adaptations, their rhythms of life, and their interactions with animals. The Central Brazilian cerrado should be considered as a distinct vegetation type, distinguished from other physiognomically similar Central and South American vegetation types by its ecology, species composition and floristic diversity. Cerrado occurs frequently in savanna-like forms, but also as forest (closed arboreal canopy), woodland (open arboreal canopy), scrub and open grassland forms. Floristic similarities of cerrado and Central and South American savannas and savanna-like vegetation are the result of a common origin of all these vegetation types and also testifies to floristic exchange between Neotropical savannas and cerrados during the Tertiary and the Quaternary.

In the second volume, pollination and seed dispersal phenomena will be described, and emphasis placed on how these processes, essentially plant-animal interrelationships, are critical to the maintenance and regeneration of this ecosystem.

Contents

1) Introduction
2) Events and Processes Leading to Reproduction and Seed Formation
3) Generalist Insect-Pollinated Species Usually Having Bees as Principal Visitors of Day-Active Flowers
      3a) Generalist Flowers Having a Greater Beetle Component
      3b) Generalist Flowers Having an Occasional Beetle Component
4) Pollen-Flowers in Dilleniaceae, Clusiaceae, Myrtaceae and Mimosaceae
5) Species Pollinated by Small and Medium-Sized Bees
      5a) Choripetalous Open or Partially Constricted Nectar- Flowers
      5b) Choripetalous Open Pollen-Flowers
      5c) Choripetalous Papilionoid Nectar-Flowers
      5d) Sympetalous Actinomorphic or Zygomorphic Nectar-Flowers
      5e) Flowers with Explosive Release of Pollen
      5f) Pollination by Resin-Collecting Bees
6) Species with Nectar-Flowers Pollinated by Large Bees
      6a) Choripetalous Actinomorphic or Zygomorphic Flowers
      6b) Choripetalous Papilionoid Flowers
      6c) Sympetalous Flowers
7) Floral Ecology of Bee-Pollinated Bignoniaceae
8) Superimposed Pollination Systems in Jacaranda
9) Oxaea flavescens: Nectar Robber or Pollinator?
10) Buzz Pollination in Pollen-Flowers Having Poricidal Anthers
      10a) Pollination of Solanum lycocarpum and Ouratea Flowers
      10b) Multistaminate Large Flowers of Cochlospermum
      10c) The Riddle of Mass-Flowering Miconia Species
      10d) Flower Structures and Pollination in Cassiinae: Variations on a Theme
11) Oil-Flowers and Oil-Collecting Bees
12) The Native Cerrado Bee Fauna and the Introduced Honeybee
13) Scarcity of Fly Pollination
14) Cerrado Palms: From General Entomophily with Bees Predominating to Cantharophily
15) In the Evening When the Beetles Come: Pollination in Annonaceae and Philodendron
16) The Opportunists: Butterflies
17) Generalist Night- (and Day)-Active Flowers, with Increasing Tendency Towards Moth (Nocturnal Lepidoptera) Pollination
18) Moth Pollination
19) Pollination and Evolution in Vochysiaceae
20) The Silent Pollinators: Bats
21) Hummingbirds and their Flowers
22) Wind Pollination
23) Pollination and Floral Biology in One Hectare of Cerrado
24) Pollination and Floral Biology within Cerrado sensu lato and as compared to Other Vegetation Types
25) Sex Expression and Breeding Systems
26) Herbivory and its Links to Reproduction and Regeneration; Parasitic Fungi and Myxomycetes
27) Ants and Termites and their Influence on Plants and Vegetation
28) Animals and their Role as Seed Dispersal Agents
29) The Study of Dispersal in Cerrado Vegetation
30) Field Work and Methods Used During Studies of Dispersal Phenomena in Two Plots of Cerrado sensu stricto and Cerradao in Botucatu
31) Principal Dispersal Modes, their Relation to Height Classes and Examples of Dispersal Phenomena in the Cerrado sensu stricto Hectare, Botucatu
32) Dispersal and Trypanocarpy in Grasses
      32a) Relationship Between the Morphology of Dispersal Units and their Dispersal
      32b) Observations on Hygroscopic Movements of Awns
33) Modes of Zoochory in the Cerrado sensu stricto Hectare and their Relationship to Height Classes
34) Dispersal Modes Related to Fruiting Time in the Cerrado sensu stricto Hectare
35) Dispersal Modes in the Cerradao Hectare as Compared with the Cerrado sensu stricto Hectare in Botucatu
36) Distribution Pattern in Relation to Dispersal Mode

References
Index

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