Search

The year 2000 marks 500 years of massive destruction for the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, as a consequence of the European colonization of Brazil. Today, the Atlantic Forest is restricted to ca98,800 km2of remnants, or 7.6 percent of its original extension. The Atlantic Forest continues to suffer under severe anthropogenic pressure, risking imminent extinction of the remaining species. Our current knowledge indicates that this complex biome contains a species diversity higher than most of the Amazon forests, and also has high levels of endemism. The 13 selected articles in this special issue present data on the natural history, ecology, sustainable management, and conservation of the Atlantic Forest. These articles represent a sample of the research conducted to date in the region and suggest avenues of future research, particularly with regard to conservation alternatives for the remaining portions of the Atlantic Forest. This special issue represents one of the first general references pertaining to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

This paper describes the phenology of leaf, flower, and fruit phenology in the Atlantic rain forests of southeastern Brazil. For 17 months, we observed the phenological patterns of trees from two Atlantic forest types at four sites: premontane forest (Sites I and IV; the “typical” Atlantic rain forest) and coastal plain forest (Sites II and III). All sites experience a nonseasonal, tropical wet climate, characterized by an annual rainfall usually > 2000 mm and lacking a dry season. We tested for the occurrence (or absence) of seasonal phenological patterns within each site and compared the patterns detected among the four different forest sites using circular statistics. The expected weakly seasonal phenological patterns were not observed for these forests. Flowering and leaf flush patterns of Atlantic rain forest trees were significantly seasonal, concentrated at the beginning of the wettest season, and were significantly correlated with day length and temperature. These results stress the influence that seasonal variation in day length has on ever-wet forest tree phenology. Fruiting phenologies were aseasonal in all four forests. Flowering patterns did not differ significantly among three of the four forest sites analyzed, suggesting the occurrence of a general flowering pattern for Atlantic rain forest trees.

This paper reports for the first time data on the taxonomic distribution and abundance of woody plants with extrafloral nectaries (EFNs) in plant communities occuring in the Amazon region, Brazil. Surveys were carried out in four vegetation types: ‘terra firme’ forest, successional forest, ‘buritirana’ (palm vegetation) and ‘shrub canga’ (savanna). EFNSs were present in 30 plant species belonging to 22 genera and 14 families. Nectary species represented 17.6 to 53.3% of the species sampled in different areas, with local abundances varying from 19.1 to 50.0%. The percentage of species with EFNs was greater in the flora of the shrub canga than in the terra firme and successional forests. Nectary plants were more abundant in the shrub canga and successional forest. The data for proportion and abundance of nectary species in Amazonian vegetation types were in general much higher than those obtained in temperate habitats, and support the hypothesis that EFNs tend to be more common in tropical environments. It is suggested that the high abundance of EFNs in the surveyed areas may be the result of intense foraging activity by ants on plants, leading to the formation of facultative mutualisms.