Manilkara rufula

Manilkara rufula
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Asterids
Order: Ericales
Family: Sapotaceae
Genus: Manilkara
Species: M. rufula
Binomial name
Manilkara rufula
(Miq.) H.J.Lam[2]
Synonyms

Mimusops rufula Miq.[2][3]

Manilkara rufula is a species of tree in the Sapodilla family. It is endemic to the northeastern submontane forests of Bahia, Sergipe, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Ceará and Piauí states of Brazil. Although this species exists in many places, where it occurs it is either not numerous, or its numbers are declining due to loss of habitat.[1]

Ecology

Manilkara rufula, along with its speciatic cousins M. longifolia and M. maxima, provide nectar as food for a primate called the golden-headed lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysomelas).[4] Both tree and tamarin are only found in those remnants of Atlantic forest remaining in the northeastern region of Brazil. This habitat has long been disappearing through decades of intensive logging, followed by further disturbance in the converting of logged land to subsistence farming. What is left of said habitat comprises less than four percent of its original area. [5]

These small habitats, islands of forest called "brejos", are fragments of moist forest caatingas, surrounded on every side by either dry forest caatingas, or by cerrados, swaths of shrubby vegetation resembling savanna, where M. rufula cannot grow. Unlike its dryer neighbors, caatinga moist forests occur primarily along inaccessible ridges and on solitary prominences, and are deluged by tropical rains measuring from 1,000 to 1,300 mm annually.[5]

Manilkara rufula, along with some of its tree species associates (Podocarpus sellowii, Prunus sphaerocarpa, for example) is a remnant of an earlier climatological regime, when the northeast region as a whole was far moister than most of it is today. A prisoner both geographically and genetically, M. rufula is prevented from further spread by the less-than-ideal arid growing conditions all around it.[5]

Sources

  1. 1 2 Assessor: Pires-O'Brien, J. (1998). "Manilkara rufula in IUCN 2009". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2009.1. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Retrieved January 21, 2010.
  2. 1 2 Blumea 4: 356. 1941 "Plant Name Details for Manilkara rufula". IPNI. Retrieved January 21, 2010. nomenclatural synonym: Sapotaceae Mimusops rufula
  3. ↑ Flora Brasiliensis 7: 44. 1863. "Name - Mimusops rufula Miq.". Tropicos. Saint Louis, Missouri: Missouri Botanical Garden. Retrieved January 21, 2010.
  4. ↑ L. C. Oliveira; S. J. Hankerson; J. M. Dietz; B. E. Raboy (2010). "Key tree species for the golden-headed lion tamarin and implications for shade-cocoa management in southern Bahia, Brazil" (PDF). Animal Conservation. The Zoological Society of London. 13: 60–70. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1795.2009.00296.x. Retrieved January 29, 2010.
  5. 1 2 3 "Caatinga Enclaves moist forests". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund. Retrieved January 29, 2010.


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