Abstract
Riparian forests are important for their ecological function and provision of services regarding the maintenance of water resources and wild fauna. Paradoxically, it is one of the ecosystems that suffer most from anthropization, especially urbanization. Thus, our objective was to compare the probability of occurrence of pollinating and dispersing species in two areas of riparian forest, where the periurban fragment is inserted in an area with patches of forest remnants and the urban fragment, an area of forest remnant located in a heavily constructed region. From the results obtained, we note that the riparian forest area considered preserved had the highest occurrence of dispersers, while the area inserted in the urban matrix had the highest occurrence of pollinators. In this way, it was possible to observe that the most preserved area showed greater equality between the groups, with a greater number of dispersers. Still, riparian forest isolated by strong urbanization showed that dispersers had a low frequency of occurrence, an essential function in the renewal and continuity of riparian forest in the future.
Highlights
Human interference significantly affects bird species that live in natural ecosystems (Marini and Garcia 2005; Tella et al 2020), including riparian forests, which are one of the most degraded ecosystems (Ferreira and Dias 2004)
The use of disperser and pollinator functional groups of birds as bioindicators of environmental condition is relevant because the urbanization of an area can lead to fragmentation and isolation of native areas, reducing the availability of resources (Silva 2010)
Based on the theoretical framework above, this study predicted that isolated riparian forests in heavily urbanized areas change the composition and structure of the bird community of the functional groups of pollinators and dispersers, which are important for the maintenance of the forest for as long as possible
Summary
The study was conducted in the city of São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil. The city is located on the Atlantic plateau and is included in the natural subdivisions, defined by distinct morphological characteristics: Serra da Mantiqueira, Médio Vale do Paraíba and Planalto de Paraitinga. The visits to the sampling areas were conducted in the morning, between 5:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., on each day two observation points were visited, totaling 3 hours of observation per day, at each point the permanence time was approximately 1 h 30 min As noted, it took 4 days of field work to visit each area, that is, 8 days to perform the procedure in both study areas. Performed by Leveau (2013), composed of bird species that nest in trees, are nectarivores and that feed on fruit The characteristics of these species are associated with pollination and seed dispersal that promote the propagation of flora species. In addition to this important function, the presence of species that nest in trees denotes the function of shelter for fauna in these urban forest areas. The selected dispersers were Euphonia chlorotica, Thlypopsis sórdida, Mimus saturninus, Turdus amaurochalinus, Turdus rufiventris, Turdus leucomelas and the selected pollinators were Coereba flaveola, Amazilia láctea, Eupetomena macroura and Phaethornis pretrei
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