João Custódio Fernandes Cardoso

• PhD
• PostDoc Position at Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto (UFOP)

Herbivory plays a crucial role in shaping vegetation dynamics. In the Brazilian Cerrado, the abundant and widespread presence of leaf-cutter ants contributes to the prevalence of high levels of chewing insect damage. However, the influence of increased herbivory on seedling survival remains largely untested in experimental settings. Furthermore, it...

Agricultural land-use changes are projected to increase worldwide and may remain the leading drivers of biodiversity loss. The impacts resulting from the conversion of native vegetation habitats into pastures and croplands include biotic homogenisation, habitat fragmentation, and the intense use of pesticides. Here, we studied the influence of agri...

Urbanization has reshaped the distribution of biodiversity on Earth, but we are only beginning to understand its effects on ecological communities. While urbanization may have homogenization effects strong enough to blur the large-scale patterns in interaction networks, urban community patterns may still be associated with climate gradients reflect...

Water-filled tree hollows constitute phytotelmata that harbor specialized organisms. One striking example of extreme adaptation to these microhabitats is the case of the microcrustacean Micromoina arboricola, which has been found inhabiting the hollow of a single tree individual in the Atlantic Forest. We investigated the spatial distribution and i...

Resupination refers to the developmental orientation changes of flowers through ≈180º, leaving them effectively upside-down. It is a widespread trait present in 14 angiosperm families, including the Orchidaceae, where it is a gravitropic phenomenon actively controlled by auxins. Here, we demonstrate that the passive gravitational pull on flower par...

Plant individuals respond to distinct environmental conditions, which can drive morphological variation. Conversely, intraindividual floral variation affects interactions with pollinators and plant fitness. In distyly, population-level variation has been seen as negative since morph reciprocity in stigma and anther heights promotes precise cross-po...

Trapping trichomes, a common trait found in protogynous trap flowers, are thought to enable interaction with pollinators, promoting both pollen removal and fruit set. However, this hypothesis has yet to be empirically confirmed. In this study, we experimentally tested whether trapping trichomes favour male and female functions in trap flowers. Usin...

Airports can be attractive places for fauna to find food resources, especially for large birds, which can cause severe collisions with aircraft. At many Brazilian airports, the Crested Caracara (Caracara plancus) is considered a problem due to the high rates of collisions and sightings in risk areas. Therefore, strategies to manage the species at a...

Dry forests face significant threats due to human activities, including habitat fragmentation, leading to edge effects that alter microclimatic conditions and species composition. This study evaluates the impact of edge effects on pollination syndromes in a Caatinga dry forest in Brazil. Fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2013 recorded woody plan...

Most Aristolochiaceae species studied so far are from temperate regions, bearing self-compatible protogynous trap flowers. Although self-incompatibility has been suggested for tropical species, the causes of self-sterility in this family remain unknown. To fill this gap, we studied the pollination of the tropical Aristolochia esperanzae, including...

Co-evolving organisms experience multiple selection pressures that may lead to trait mismatches among different populations and sites. In defensive ant–plant mutualisms, host plants (myrmecophytes) produce specialized shelters (domatia) to harbour specialized ant-partners in exchange for protection against enemies. Although populations of myrmecoph...

Longer stigmas in short‐styled morphs of distylous plants have been considered an adaptive characteristic that increases intermorph pollen deposition. The greater pollen deposition in short‐styled stigmas may be a by‐product of their longer length, making deposition effectiveness comparison between morphs unfeasible. Thus, investigating which morph...

• In many families, plants undergo floral resupination by twisting through approximately 180º during floral development so that the flower is effectively positioned upside down. In most orchids, resupination results in the median petal (i.e. the labellum) becoming lowermost, which plays a crucial role in pollination by serving as a landing platform...

Although spiders and land planarians constitute diverse groups of terrestrial predators, interactions between them are still unknown. Here, we describe a predatory event of a land planarian (Choeradoplana cf. gladismariae) on a web-building spider (Helvibis longicauda) in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The prey was constricted and covered with stic...

The galling insects, host plants and all gall-interacting organisms may depend on environmental conditions and stochasticity to establish and maintain their life cycles and trophic interactions. The micromoth Palaeomystella oligophaga (Lepidoptera: Momphidae) induces galls on Macairea radula (Melastomataceae) and its populations suffer mortality ca...

Urbanization leads to the restructuring of plant-animal interactions due to environmental changes and introduction of non-native species that become part of local ecological processes. The conservation of pollinators in urban areas has received increasing attention. However, detailed quantification of available floral resources and their use by pol...

Ecosystem engineering consists of a ubiquitous and fundamental class of interactions where some organisms promote state changes in biotic and abiotic materials which indirectly affect others. Since the concept was created as a counterpoint to traditional flux-based models, pollinators have never been considered to promote ecosystem engineering beca...

Urbanization affects the occurrence, abundance and distribution of pollinators worldwide. Although urban green spaces support many pollinators, global estimates of urban pollinator diversity are still lacking. Here, we present a global overview of urban pollinators, characterizing the most frequently recorded species and functional groups, as well...

Street trees integrate the urban green infrastructure and are important elements for the maintenance of biodiversity, including pollinators. Thus, assessments of the spatiotemporal distribution and composition of these trees can subsidize strategies of conservation for different groups of pollinators in the cities. Here, we evaluated the spatiotemp...

Background and Aims Trap flowers are fascinating cases of adaptation, often linked to oviposition site mimicry systems. Some trap flowers do not imprison pollinators for a pre-determined period, but rather force them to move through a specific path, manipulating their movements in a way that culminates in pollen transfer, often as they leave throug...

Invasive rats are considered a public health problem in urban environments. However, new evidence from a city in Colombia suggests that brown rats (Rattus norvegicus) can potentially pollinate the introduced Acca sellowiana, an economically important plant. In addition to its delicious fruits, it is known for being a species from the Myrtaceae fami...

Galls display a multiplicity of traits, including colours, which are driven by pigment accumulation. Their conspicuousness has attracted researchers' attention and several hypotheses have been raised. However, plants themselves vary intra‐specifically, including in their pigment concentrations. As galls are a result of host tissue development, colo...

Wetlands are among the most important ecosystems in the world in terms of endemic biodiversity, carbon storage and hydrological process. Veredas wetlands are distributed across the Brazilian savanna (i.e. Cerrado biome) and are permanently protected areas. Veredas wetlands have a hydromorphic soil, providing water to the main rivers of central Braz...

Morphological niche partitioning between related syntopic plants that are distylous (with short- and long-styled morphs) is complex. Owing to differences in the heights of stigmas and anthers, each floral morph must place pollen onto two distinct parts of the body of the pollinator. This led us to hypothesize that such partitioning should be more a...

The high levels of oxidative stress detected in gall tissues, the production of phenolic derivatives as scavengers of these molecules, and the changes in the gall photochemical efficiency have been related to the feeding behavior of galling insects. Herein, we evaluated the oxidative stress, photochemical parameters and pigment contents in four le...

Plant galls are generated by the stimuli of gall-inducing organisms on their hosts, creating gall morphotypes that vary in color, shape, size, and tissue organization. Herein, we propose to compare the structural features of gall morphotypes on the superhost Croton floribundus (Euphorbiaceae) in order to recognize gall morphospecies, i.e., galls wi...

Distyly is a floral polymorphism that promotes cross-pollination through precise pollination. Psychotria is a mostly tropical genus of distylous Rubiaceae. Although widely studied in Brazil, some regions/species are still poorly explored, which hinders the understanding of distyly system along a greater geographical range. Here, we studied a subtro...

Knowledge of how natural and anthropogenic factors can limit the distribution of rare species is key to develop conservation strategies. We show data on how both factors potentially affect the distribution of a rare high Andean orchid. We chose Masdevallia coccinea as a model because it is endangered and the most commercialized species of the entir...

Florivores and rainfall generally have negative impacts on plant fecundity. However, in some cases, they can mediate fruit set. Some plants face severe pollen-limited fecundity and any additional fruit set, even if from self-pollination, can be advantageous. This is the case in some tropical deceptive orchids, such as the threatened Cyrtopodium hat...

Heterostyly is a polymorphism in which populations comprise two (distyly) or three (tristyly) floral morphs with reciprocal positioning of the height of the anthers and stigmas (reciprocal herkogamy). Such reciprocal herkogamy permits precise pollen placement on pollinators’ bodies and pollination success by promoting disassortative pollen transfer...

Pollinators provide essential ecosystem services worldwide, but dependence on biotic pollination is higher in the tropics, where urbanization is expected to impact biodiversity more severely. Here, we present a global review on urban pollinator studies with emphasis on the tropics. From the 308 published studies that included information on pollina...

Changes in the vegetation of Brazilian Cerrado may occur over time. However, long-term dynamics are not fully understood yet, especially woody plant encroachment (WPE). The objective of this study was to examine changes in vegetation structure in a preserved area in Triângulo Mineiro region, within the southern Brazilian Cerrado domain, over 32 yea...

Introduction: The enemy hypothesis postulates that gall traits protect galling insects against natural enemies. Galls show a huge range of sizes, colors and ornaments, which vary even intraspecifically. However, galling insects are targets of various organisms that attack them directly or indirectly. In this context, to consider only one gall trait...

1. Understanding the distribution of organisms is a central issue in ecology. Some animal densities are directly determined by resource availability(i.e. the ideal free distribution model, IFD). Hence, animals freely occupy the available patches so that the payoff is ideally maximised according to resource exploitation and competition. Based on its...

The chemical composition of the cell walls strongly affects water permeability and storage in root tissues. Since epiphytic orchids live in a habitat with a highly fluctuating water supply, the root cell walls are functionally important. In the present study, we used histochemistry and immunocytochemistry techniques in order to determine the compos...

Rewardless orchid species are pollinated by deception and have reduced reproductive success. Those species that present self‐compatibility followed by alternative mechanisms of autogamy may compensate for such episodic allogamy events. This is the case for rain‐assisted self‐pollination, a rare mechanism in Orchidaceae. In this study, we investigat...

Allorhogas Gahan (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is a mainly Neotropical doryctine wasp genus whose species have been associated with 11 vascular plant families. All species of Allorhogas whose feeding habits are known are confirmed or presumed to be phytophagous, either by being gall inducers on seeds, seeds predators or by inquilinism of other gall for...

The relationship between plants and frugivorous animals is modulated by morphological and nutritional characteristics of fruits, as well as their seasonal availability across habitats. We evaluated fruiting phenology, fruit morphology and nutritional characteristics of 35 abundant plant species from 15 families associated with frugivorous birds fro...

Insect-induced galls usually develop nutritional cells, which they induce and consume directly, and any metabolic modification of those cells may reflect changes of the insect’s own metabolism. The system Palaeomystella oligophaga (Lepidoptera)—Macairea radula (Melastomataceae) presents a series of natural enemies, including parasitoids and cecidop...

The original version of this article unfortunately contains an error. The correct caption of Figures 2 and 3 are shown in this paper.

When a prey is perceived and attacked, it may adopt direct anti-predator strategies, such as fleeing and tonic immobility (TI). During this latter, individuals remain in a motionless posture, which may reduce chances of being preyed, but retain close distance to the predator. Alternatively, fleeing increases distance from the threat, while enhancin...

The histochemistry approach has been used to understand cell metabolism modulation by galling organisms on their host-plant organs and the relationship of the accumulation of metabolites with the ecological and physiological roles. The main secondary classes of metabolites (i.e., phenolic compounds, terpenes, and alkaloids) have been mainly associa...

The coexistence of phylogenetically related species is an attractive topic because of the potentially intense interspecific competition. The most often investigated mechanisms mediating coexistence of these species are environmental filtering and niche partitioning. However, the role of other factors, such as species-specific parasites, is still po...

Angiosperms display an enormous diversity of forms, functions and strategies when it comes to reproduction. This multiplicity has been translated into several terminological concepts and contexts, which have facilitated further research. On the other hand, the use of terms that address the reproduction of flowering plants has been shown to be incon...

1.Several studies have hypothesized why galls have conspicuous colors, but none of the ideas was confirmed. However, what if the vibrant colors of some galls are explained simply by the effect of light exposure? This may lead to anthocyanin accumulation, functioning as a defense mechanism against the sunlight effects. 2.We studied the globoid galls...

Floral monosymmetry appears to be a derived condition, arising independently many times, with a multiplicity of forms, and related to both, pollinator and plant diversification. It reduces interference between sexual functions in flowers and increases cross-pollination and allogamy. But since the description and assessment of the functioning of tho...

Background Evolutionary thinking is traditionally directly related to education and inversely to religiosity. Accordingly, biology students are naturally expected to be more prone to naturalist evolution due to their close contact with this theory and high scientific literacy. To test this, we performed a cross-national study surveying biology stud...

Elucidating the factors determining the occurrence of florivorous organisms is an essential step for comprehending arthropod–plant interactions, especially when considering florivores that use flowers/inflorescences as microhabitats. In this study, we characterize the interaction between florivorous thrips (Thysanoptera) and Palicourea rigida (Rubi...

Behavioral manipulation involving Zatypota (Ichneumonidae: Pimplinae) parasitoids and their spider hosts is usually associated with an increase in web complexity at the location where the parasitoid larva builds its cocoon. A higher number of web threads at this location may improve stability and provide a physical barrier against potential predato...

A formação de cidadãos críticos e conscientes relaciona-se com o conhecimento científico e com o estabelecimento de uma postura ambiental desde os primeiros anos escolares. Dessa forma, o ensino das Ciências Naturais é de suma importância no processo educacional de crianças e jovens. Nesse contexto, o presente trabalho relata uma proposta de extens...