Patricia de Britto Costa

University of Campinas | UNICAMP · Departamento de Biologia Vegetal

Background and aims Belowground interspecific plant facilitation is supposed to play a key role in enabling species co-existence in hyperdiverse ecosystems in extremely nutrient-poor, semi-arid habitats, such as Banksia woodlands in southwestern-Australia. Manganese (Mn) is readily mobilised by Banksia cluster root activity in most soils and accumu...

Background The Cerrado of central Brazil—the world’s largest Neotropical savanna – is comprised of a mosaic of highly heterogeneous vegetation growing on an extremely diverse geologic and geomorphologic background. Geomorphic processes under stable tectonic and climatic conditions facilitated the development of diverse edaphic properties, which int...

Background Unveiling the diversity of plant strategies to acquire and use phosphorus (P) is crucial to understand factors promoting their coexistence in hyperdiverse P-impoverished communities within fire-prone landscapes such as in cerrado (South America), fynbos (South Africa) and kwongan (Australia). Scope We explore the diversity of P-acquisit...

Around 40% of the original Brazilian savanna territory is occupied by pastures dominated by fast‐growing exotic C4 grasses, which impact ecosystem nutrient cycling. The restoration of these areas depends on the re‐establishment of soil processes. We assessed how restoration of abandoned pastures through direct seeding of native species and land‐man...

Species loss leads to changes in ecosystem function and services, impacting human well-being. Although biodiversity restoration is pivotal to circumvent this situation, the techniques for restoring old-growth savannas are still limited and the restoration outcomes remain unpredictable. Here, we use a trait-based approach to understand the functiona...

The campos rupestres (rocky grassland) comprise an old-growth seasonally dry herbaceous ecosystem on mountaintops in central and eastern Brazil and in disjoint areas with sparse shrubs with high plant diversity and endemism. This ecosystem consists of sharp-edged quartzite landforms and rocky hillslopes with boulders, blocks, and sparse soil cover....

Desiccation tolerance (DT) is the ability of plants to tolerate low leaf water content from which they can recover when water becomes available. DT species mostly occur in seasonally-dry environments, tropical rocky outcrops such as the campos rupestres. Velloziaceae, a prominent family in the campos rupestres, comprises both DT and non-DT species....

Nutrient‐poor ecosystems globally exhibit high plant diversity. One mechanism enabling species coexistence in such ecosystems is facilitation among plants with contrasting nutrient‐acquisition strategies. The ecophysiological processes underlying these interactions remain poorly understood. We hypothesised that root positioning plays a role between...

Tropical savannas are known for the fire‐prone ecosystems, yet, riparian evergreen forests are another important landscape feature. These forests usually remain safe from wildfires in the wet riparian zones. With global changes, large wildfires are now more frequent in savanna landscapes, exposing riparian forests to unprecedented impact. In 2017,...

Plant traits are increasingly being used to improve prediction of plant function, including plant demography. However, the capability of plant traits to predict demographic rates remains uncertain, particularly in the context of trees experiencing a changing climate. Here we present data combining 17 plant traits associated with plant structure, me...

Whether tropical trees acclimate to long‐term drought stress remains unclear. This uncertainty is amplified if drought stress is accompanied by changes in other drivers such as the increases in canopy light exposure that might be induced by tree mortality or other disturbances. Photosynthetic capacity, leaf respiration, non‐structural carbohydrate...

Our aim was to explore the potential of Cerrado, a biodiversity hotspot which is a reservoir of genetic resources of agriculture-relevant traits to be used towards enhancing the sustainable use of agriculture in the region. We searched for pertinent articles dealing with all relevant aspects of Cerrado that we cover in our review. We focus on P-acq...

Our aim was to explore the potential of Cerrado, a biodiversity hotspot which is a reservoir of genetic resources of agriculture-relevant traits to be used towards enhancing the sustainable use of agriculture in the region. We searched for pertinent articles dealing with all relevant aspects of Cerrado that we cover in our review. We focus on P-acq...

The fate of tropical forests under future climate change is dependent on the capacity of their trees to adjust to drier conditions. The capacity of trees to withstand drought is likely to be determined by traits associated with their hydraulic systems. However, data on whether tropical trees can adjust hydraulic traits when experiencing drought rem...

Gramíneas invasoras introduzidas para pastagem são um grande desafio para conservação e restauração do Cerrado. Este grupo é constituído principalmente por espécies de rápido crescimento e estratégias aquisitivas que se desenvolvem rapidamente em solos ricos em nutrientes. A modificação do solo do Cerrado, retirando suas características típicas de...

Plant growth on harsh substrates (habitat specialization) requires specific traits to cope with stressful conditions. We tested whether traits related to nutrient acquisition (root colonization by fungal symbionts, and plant morphological and physiological specializations), and nutrient use (leaf nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) concentrations and N...

O domínio cerrado é considerado um “hotspot” de biodiversidade e sua integridade e diversidade de espécies estão fortemente ameaçadas pela mudança de uso da terra em grande escala e pela invasão de espécies de gramíneas de origem africana. As gramíneas africanas têm o potencial de afetar funções ecossistêmicas, alterando a produtividade, estrutura...

The rocky, seasonally-dry and nutrient-impoverished soils of the Brazilian campos rupestres impose severe growth-limiting conditions on plants. Species of a dominant plant family, Velloziaceae, are highly specialized to low-nutrient conditions and seasonal water availability of this environment, where phosphorus (P) is the key limiting nutrient. De...

Campos rupestres is an extremely phosphorus (P)‐impoverished rocky ecosystem in Brazil. Velloziaceae is an important plant family in this environment, and some species colonize exposed quartzite rock. However, we know virtually nothing about their root development and nutrient acquisition within the rock outcrops and their possible role in rock wea...

Understanding the mechanisms that underlie the generation of beta‐diversity remains a challenge in ecology. Underground plant adaptations to environmental gradients have received relatively little attention. We studied plant nutrient‐acquisition strategies and nutrient‐use efficiency at three stages of pedogenesis in infertile soils from campos rup...

Fig. S1 Diurnal variation of stem CO2 efflux from trees on the control and TFE plots. Fig. S2 Relationships between sapwood depth and tree diameter and basal area. Table S1 List of the tree diameter and species of all trees sampled in this study Table S2 Distribution of trees across size classes for all trees >10 cm diameter at 1.3 m above groun...

CO2 efflux from stems (CO2_stem) accounts for a substantial fraction of tropical forest gross primary productivity, but the climate sensitivity of this flux remains poorly understood. We present a study of tropical forest CO2_stem from 215 trees across wet and dry seasons, at the world's longest running tropical forest drought experiment site. We s...

Background and Aims Euplassa cantareirae is a Neotropical Proteaceae, native to the Restinga forest in Brazil and it experiences a wide array of adverse environmental conditions, especially seasonal flooding and low nutrient availability. We aimed to investigate the effects of phosphorus (P) supply on plant growth and cluster root formation, as wel...