Blue Fronted Amazon Project

On the first part of my PhD dissertation, I analyzed the feeding behavior of the Blue-fronted Amazon. Once a month, from July 2005 to Dec 2007, my team and I used trails in different environments in Pantanal to observe the parrots.

I registered 1,349 Blue-fronted Amazon eating flowers, fruits, and seeds from 48 different plant species. The high seed consumption indicates that this parrot is mainly a graminivore of canopy trees. In general, the Blue-fronted Amazon is a generalist, with a very diverse diet, in response to the intense variety of resources in a seasonal and heterogeneous environment, such as Pantanal. Our next step will be to evaluate the nutritional composition of the Blue-fronted Amazon diet, with the collaboration of researches from different institutions.

Parrot eating flowers of the Caribbean Trumpet Tree (Tabebuia aurea).

Vandir and I checking the trees.

Since June 2005 we have been studying the dietary ecology of the blue-fronted amazon parrot in Pantanal, Brazil. Every month during the field trips we observe and register the vegetal species consumed by the parrots. When is not possible to recognize the vegetal species in the field, we take pictures and collect samples for further identification at the Ecology and Botanic Laboratory at the Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS), a federal university in the state.                        Vandir and me observing the parrots eating (top) and samples of leaves and fruits to be submitted to the lab (bottom).  The identification of the species used to be done by Dr. Ubirazilda Maria Resende, and now is done by the biology undergraduate students at UFMS: Tatiana Souza do Amaral, Thales Henrique Dias, Thayane Ely Lima and Verónica Ramírez Martinez.                                                                          Tatiana and Veronica checking references for identifying the samples.                                                                   Thales and Thayane identifying samples in the lab.  The specialized bibliographies used are ‘Frutos e Sementes’ [Fruits and Seeds] (Barroso et al., 2004) and ‘Botânica Sistemática’ [Systematic Botanic] (Souza & Lorenzi, 2005).                                                                                                                                 Thanks to the constant efforts and dedication of this team we soon will be able to make available the diet of blue-fronted amazon parrots in Pantanal!Thank you all!                                                                                                                                       A great team of biology students: Veronica, Thales, Thayane, and Tatiana.  Thank you guys!