Macroecology of plant-pollinator interactions of food plants in Brazil

Abstract

Land use change and climate change are considered one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss, especially in the tropics, being responsible for reorganizing biological communities, affecting the ecosystems dynamics and functioning. As a consequence, mutualistic interactions are lost, such as plant-pollinator interactions, negatively affecting the pollination. The aim of this PhD Thesis was to understand how climate change and various drivers of land use change affect the pollination of food plants in Brazil, building a discussion with implications for biodiversity conservation and human food security. For this, this thesis is structured into seven chapters. In Chapter 1 was examined the profile of plant-pollinator interactions in food plants cultivated in Brazil and how the loss of pollinators can affect the pollination of native and exotic crops in Brazilian biomes. Following, the chapter 2 evaluates the consequences of the expansion of agricultural areas in Brazil, particularly those destined for monocultures, on the reproductive functional diversity of agricultural crops. The chapter 3 seek to understand the impacts of different climate change scenarios on the pollination of food plants essentially dependent on

pollinators cultivated in Brazil, evaluating the impacts of possible losses of plant- pollinator interactions. The Chapter 4 describes, through the political, social and

environmental context of Brazil, how political instability in the country was responsible for the increase in food insecurity and return to the world hunger map. After investigating the effects of climate change and expansion of agricultural frontiers at the national level, in chapters 5 and 6 was evaluated how chronic anthropogenic disturbances and aridity affect fruit plant assemblages in the Caatinga, along plots of old-growth forests in chapter 5 and, for chapter 6, along a chronosequence covering secondary forests from 4 to 50 years old and old-growth forests, investigating the recovery rate and successional trajectory of plant assemblages. Finally, in order to prospect possible solutions for the potential and sustainable use of food species, in the chapter it was investigated the potentials of urban agriculture, a type of alternative agricultural system that works to guarantee the maintenance of biodiversity, pollination, food production and food security.