Morphological, functional and phylogenetic diversification in Velloziaceae, a model for the "campos rupestres"

Abstract

The recent integrative approaches available with the outcoming well-resolved phylogenies and the accumulation of distribution, morphological and ecological data sets are reviving the interest for the study of diversification of organisms. To use this approach to study Neotropical groups is particularly interesting because of the huge diversity of species in this region of the Earth. Historically, many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the high diversity in the Neotropics, basically focusing on Amazon groups, but most hypotheses only currently can be evaluated. In spite of increasing efforts to understand the diversification in these areas, we have not enough empirical data to evaluate the processes that determine the diversification in other Neotropical areas as the "campos rupestres." This environment has the highest indices of endemisms and rare species among all the other known Brazilian areas. Thus, we propose in this project to evaluate the process responsible for the diversification of lineages in the "campos rupestres." For that, we will use the family Velloziaceae as model, since this is one of the most diverse lineages in the "campos rupestres." We will increase the number of taxa sampled in the phylogeny available for the family and compile/sample data about the geographical distribution, the morphology and the ecology of the species included in the phylogeny. We will focus on vegetative traits associated to the tolerance of the species to extreme conditions and on floral traits the mediate plant-pollinator interactions. These data will be evaluated in an explicit phylogenetic context to test hypotheses including historical, biogeographical and ecological factors. We hope it will allow a holistic evaluation about the processes that have driven the diversification in the "campos rupestres." (AU)