Renilson Targino Dantas

EMISSÕES DE CO2 SOB ÁREA DE CAATINGA NO SEMI-ÁRIDO DA PARAÍBA

POLLINATOR FORAGING STRATEGY IN Galactia peduncularis (BENTH.) TAUB. (LEGUMINOSAE: PAPILIONOIDEA) IN THE PARQUE ESTADUAL DA SERRA DE CALDAS NOVAS BRAZIL The way the animals look for food is an important characteristic of their behavior. The optimal foraging theory is based on the existence of a balance between costs and benefits of these behavioral decisions. The present study aimed to evaluate the behavior of the pollinator in response to increased availability of floral resources. The experiment was conducted in a recently burned Cerrado area (Campo rupestre) in the State Park of Serra de Caldas Novas , located in the municipalities of Caldas Novas and Rio Quente Brazil. The species chosen to test our hypothesis was Galactia peduncularis (Benth.) Taub. (Leguminosae: Papilionoidea). 17 pairs of specimens were selected with a number of flowers, and the individuals of each pair were spaced by about 2m. In these pairs, one of them was considered the focal, and the other, the isolated. To test possible differences in pollination between isolated plants and focus, we performed two randomization tests: a test binary (TB), where all pairs were analyzed and verified the number of times where the focus on the individual floral visits were higher than the number of visits in isolated. According to the data analyzed, floral visitors preferred to use plants that could provide a greater amount of floral resources so that the number of visitors varied positively with the increment of flowers. Plants with many flowers can provide a greater amount of food in one location so that visitors do not need to flower around for long distances in search of meeting their energy needs.

Cinética de evolução de dióxido de carbono em área de caatinga em São João do Cariri-PB

Because of the importance of meteorological variables in different processes that occur in the soil, the objective of this work was to evaluate the kinetics of carbon dioxide evolution (microbial activity) associated with the meteorological elements in areas in caatinga in the semiarid conditions of Paraiba. The experiment was set in the field, in the Bacia Escola/CCA/UFPB, municipality of Sao Joao do Cariri - PB. The daytime microbial activity, measured by the release of CO2 , was evaluated monthly from January to December 2008, in three adjacent areas of Caatinga corresponding to the treatments: T1 (10 animals - 1 animal/3,200 m 2 ), T2 (5 animals - 1 animal/6,400 m 2 ) and T 3 (control - no animals). The total area of the experiment was 9.6 ha and for each treatment it was used an area of 3.2 ha. Six points of collection (set at random)were selected from each treatment. The treatments were distributed in completely randomized block design arranged in sub-divided plots (3×12×6), and 3 stocking rates (Plot), 12 periods of evaluation (sub-plots) and 6 hours of evaluation (sub-subplots) and 3 blocks. The methodology was based on the principle that the CO2 released by an area of soil is absorbed by a solution of 0.5 N KOH and determined titrimetricallyc with HCl 0.1 N. The evolution of CO2 varied throughout the day in function of weather factors, mainly temperature. The rate of CO2 tended to release more in the afternoon. Due to the importance of soil and air temperatures in many processes that occur in soil, more studies are needed in the semiarid region of Brazil.