Reproductive characteristics and functional diversity in plant congregation along a chronosequence in Atlantic Forest

Abstract

The association of reproductive characteristics of the species with the patterns of abundance in tropical forests at different stages of succession provides a fundamental knowledge for understanding the forest regeneration processes. This work aimed to describe the floral reproductive characteristics to determine the pollination systems and functional diversity in a chronosequence (5, 16, 24.30 years old of regeneration) and a mature forest in the state of Pernambuco Atlantic forest. It was verified how pollination syndromes are distributed among the different regeneration ages. Our hypothesis is that functional diversity of pollination syndromes is influenced by the age of regeneration. The surveys were conducted in a total of 150 plots. A total of 109 species and 1,945 individuals (40 families and 81 genera) were recorded. In general the distribution of reproductive characteristics was different between the young forest and the mature forest. There were trends of increase of the proportion of some reproductive characteristics towards mature forest. The predominant pollination syndrome along the chronological sequence was the melittophily. The results did not corroborate the hypothesis that the functional diversity of pollination syndromes is influenced by the age of forest regeneration.