Relationship between pollination syndromes, pollen morphology and plant ecology in Quaternary deposits of the Cerrado

Abstract

This study presents morphological descriptions and ecological information for 58 terrestrial pollen taxa and seven water-related pollen taxa from the Brazilian Cerrado, obtained from two sediment cores, Lake Feia (LFB1) and Getulio Swamp (VGE-17), encompassing the last 5000 and 15,000 cal yr BP, respectively. The relationships between the ecological and morphological traits (pollination syndrome, vegetation stratum and grain size) within each of the two depositional environments were investigated. In the LFB1 core, the pollen assemblages were dominated by arboreal pollen from closed physiognomies and lower storey trees (<10 m in height), while a combination of closed and open physiognomies was observed in the pollen assemblages from the VGE-17 core. The vast majority of the pollen taxa exhibited the entomophilous pollination syndrome, and a higher influx of entomophilous pollen was observed in both cores. Anemophilous and anemophilous/entomophilous syndromes were less well represented. Small and medium pollen grain classes were the most abundant, while the large pollen grain class was rare. The influx of small pollen grains was slightly more abundant in the lake record, while in the swamp record medium pollen grains were more abundant. Our results show that swamps and lakes differ in their representation of local versus regional pollen and in their sensitivity and responses to water-level changes. Landscape physiognomy also influences pollen dispersion: a closed physiognomy increases the local pollen signal, while a more open physiognomy results in better representation of local and regional signals.

Keywords:

• Tropical forest
• pollen trait
• pollen
• sediment core
• Brazil
• landscape physiognomy

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

Financial support was provided by IRD and FAPDF (0193.001374/2016). Katerine Escobar-Torrez benefited from a PhD position funded by the IRD ARTS program and the French Embassy in Bolivia. This work is part of the ANR SESAME project ‘Human paleoecology, social and cultural evolutions among first settlements in southern America’ (ANR-20-CE03-0005) and benefited from an ‘Investissement d’Avenir’ grant managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA, ref. ANR-10-LABX-25-01).

Notes on contributors

Katerine Escobar-Torrez

KATERINE ESCOBAR-TORREZ is a PhD student at the University of Montpellier, France. During her previous training, she obtained her licenciate (2016) and master’s (2020) degrees in biology at the Universidad Mayor de San Andres in La Paz, Bolivia. With an interest in ecological processes and the effect of changes as a result of natural and anthropogenic disturbances, she focuses her studies on the evolution of late Quaternary landscapes in the Altiplano and Bolivian Cerrado, evaluating palynological records in wetlands. Currently, the main objectives of her PhD research are vegetation–climate–fire interactions in the Brazilian Cerrado during the last glacial and interglacial cycles, studies that are being developed at the Institute of Evolution Sciences (ISEM, France) in collaboration with the Institute de Recherche pour le Dévelopment (IRD, France).

Raquel Franco Cassino

RAQUEL FRANCO CASSINO holds a degree in geological engineering from the Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP, Brazil, 2007), a master’s in geology from the Institute of Geosciences at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil, 2011), a PhD in geology from the University of Brasília (UnB, Brazil) and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Institut des Sciences de l’Évolution de Montpellier (France). She has experience in geosciences, with an emphasis on paleontology and palynology, working mainly on the following topics: palynology of the Cerrado, Quaternary paleoenvironments and paleoclimate of the late Quaternary. She is currently a professor at the Department of Geology at the Federal University of Ouro Preto.

Marie-Pierre Ledru

MARIE-PIERRE LEDRU is a palynologist investigating neotropical paleoecology at the Institut de Recherche pour le Dévelopment (IRD, France). Her main research areas are tropical forest dynamics and biodiversity responses in relation to Quaternary climatic changes. She is a senior researcher at the Institute of Evolution Sciences (ISEM, France) at the University of Montpellier (France).