Description: Our proposal consists of testing how environmental factors (e.g. landscape structure and configuration) interact with species distribution patterns, which determine community structure in forest remnants. The main questions to be answered are: (1) to test the hypothesis that the diversity of functional groups in forest remnants is determined by the environmental characteristics of landscapes surrounding these remnants. The distribution of groups along the landscape is determined by the degree of specialization of the group when using the environment, foraging, and mobility. We expect that more specialized groups are more susceptible to environmental changes than generalist groups and that mobility is associated with their ability to use landscape components and to disperse. (2) to test the hypothesis that the structure of bird taxocenoses in forest remnants of Cerrado is influenced by environmental variables and/or by the distance between forest remnants. We expect that total species richness will decrease with proximity among forest remnants and that species compositions will be less similar according to structural heterogeneity between landscapes. (3) Are the structure and landscape configuration determining factors for functional diversity, or these functional diversities values found are not different than expected at random? Functional diversity in forest remnants is determined by the environmental characteristics of remnants and surrounding landscapes. Considering that more specialized functional groups tend to be more susceptible to environmental changes than generalist groups, we expect that landscape structure and configuration will influence functional diversity with a positive relationship regarding landscape quality.

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Status: 2013-2015

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Institution: UFG

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Sponsor: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás.

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Team members: Arthur Bispo (Coordinator) / Shayana de Jesus / Paulo Vitor dos Santos Bernardo / Wagner Andre Pedro / Albert Gallon de Aguiar / Marcelo Lisita Junqueira / Ricardo Ribeiro da Silva