Márcia A. Rocca

• PhD
• Professor at Federal University of Sergipe

Background: Animal pollination is an important ecosystem function and service, ensuring both the integrity of natural systems and human well-being. Although many knowledge shortfalls remain, some high-quality data sets on biological interactions are now available. The development and adoption of standards for biodiversity data and metadata has pro...

Flowering plant species and their nectar-feeding vertebrates exemplify some of the most remarkable biotic interactions in the Neotropics. In the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, several species of birds (especially hummingbirds), bats, and non-flying mammals, as well as one lizard feed on nectar, often act as pollinators and contribute to seed output of...

Flowering plant species and their nectar‐feeding vertebrates exemplify some of the most remarkable biotic interactions in the Neotropics. In the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, several species of birds (especially hummingbirds), bats, and non‐flying mammals, as well as one lizard feed on nectar, often act as pollinators and contribute to seed output of...

Functional traits can determine pairwise species interactions, such as those between plants and pollinators. However, the effects of biogeography and evolutionary history on trait‐matching and trait‐mediated resource specialization remain poorly understood. We compiled a database of 93 mutualistic hummingbird–plant networks (including 181 hummingbi...

Interactions between species are influenced by different ecological mechanisms, such as morphological matching, phenological overlap and species abundances. How these mechanisms explain interaction frequencies across environmental gradients remains poorly understood. Consequently, we also know little about the mechanisms that drive the geographical...

Abundant pollinators are often more generalised than rare pollinators. This could be because abundant species have more chance encounters with potential interaction partners. On the other hand, generalised species could have a competitive advantage over specialists, leading to higher abundance. Determining the direction of the abundance–generalisat...

Aim: We examined the effects of space, climate, phylogeny and species traits on module composition in a cross-biomes plant–hummingbird network. Location: Brazil, except Amazonian region. Methods: We compiled 31 local binary plant–hummingbird networks, combining them into one cross-biomes metanetwork. We conducted a modularity analysis and tested th...

Abundant pollinators are often more generalised than rare pollinators. This could be because abundance drives generalisation: neutral effects suggest that more abundant species will be more generalised simply because they have more chance encounters with potential interaction partners. On the other hand, generalisation could drive abundance, as gen...

Este capítulo revisa a relação entre a fenofase de floração e a ecologia da polinização em plantas tropicais, com ênfase no Brasil. A fenologia é geralmente estudada separadamente da biologia floral e da polinização, mas somente uma visão integrada desses enfoques metodológicos e teóricos da reprodução vegetal pode permitir o entendimento de estrat...

Although hummingbirds are considered the major bromeliad pollinators, different species may contribute differently to pollination. This study analyses the importance of different hummingbirds to pollination of Vriesea rodigasiana (Bromeliaceae), based on visitation frequency (a quantity component) and germinated pollen load per visit (a quality com...

Bird pollination in the Neotropical region is by far known as an important interaction to ecosystem function, but perching birds visiting flowers are still very often observed as merely opportunist visitors. Although these other birds do not rely only on floral resources, there are many plant species that do depend solely on them for pollination. T...

Birds are among the main components for plant reproduction in tropical ecosystems, with hummingbirds being the most important vertebrate pollinators in the Neotropics. Flower-visiting birds of another groups (the perching birds) are often considered as parasites of the flower-hummingbird relationships. These birds do not present a high degree of sp...

We investigated the arboreal vegetation and epiphytic community of a 'restinga' dry forest to answer the following questions: i) how does epiphyte abundance and richness occur on arboreal species? ii) does phorophyte abundance depend on the abundance of tree species? iii) does epiphyte abundance and richness depend on the size and abundance of phor...

In tropical ecosystems, birds play a relevant role in plant reproduction. Although hummingbirds are regarded as the most important vertebrate pollinators in the Neotropics, the possible role of perching birds as pollinators has been neglected. From 2003 to 2005, we observed 68 species of plants visited by birds in an Atlantic rainforest in southeas...

As aves têm importante papel na reprodução de plantas em ecossistemas tropicais [1] e beija-flores são considerados os polinizadores vertebrados neotropicais mais importantes [2]. Poucos estudos de comunidades neotropicais também apresentam dados sobre distribuição vertical de sistemas de polinização ao longo dos estratos de florestas [3,4,5], prin...

Citharexylum myrianthum is an example of cryptic dioecy in morphologically perfect flowers. Flowers are small, tubular, white-colored, and crepuscular, with a sweet, pleasant scent and occur in raceme-like inflorescences. Functionally, male flowers have a less developed ovary and females have anthers lacking pollen. They are pollinated by five spec...

Insects are the staple diet of woodpeckers, but some species also habitually feed on fruits. A few woodpecker species are recorded as flower visitors for nectar intake. We report here on the blond-crested woodpecker (Celeus flavescens) taking nectar from flowers of two canopy species, Spirotheca passifloroides (Bombacaceae) and Schwartzia brasilien...

RESUMO Em uma área de Mata Atlântica foram amostrados de ramos de árvores e lianas, em um gradiente vertical de 25 m acima do solo, de modo a comparar a distribuição vertical de galhas e epífilas. A maior abundância de galhas foi encontrada nos estratos mais altos e a maior abundância de epífilas em zonas próximas ao solo. Deste modo, sugere-se que...