scholarly journals High termite richness in an urban fragment of Atlantic Forest in northeastern Brazil

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matilde Vasconcelos Ernesto ◽  
Elaine Folly Ramos ◽  
Flávia Maria da Silva Moura ◽  
Alexandre Vasconcellos

Termites are very abundant in tropical ecosystems and have active roles in nutrient cycling and soil formation, but few studies of their assemblages have been undertaken in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. The present study analyzed the composition of termite assemblages in a fragment of Atlantic Forest embedded within an urban matrix in northeastern Brazil. Five standardized sampling protocols of termites were applied, with a total sampling effort of 1500m2. We encountered 45 species of termites belonging to 25 genera and three families. The soil-feeders group demonstrated the greatest species richness, while wood-feeders species were the most abundant. The species richness of termite in the study area was the greatest yet recorded for an Atlantic forest site in Brazil, indicating the importance of urban fragments for conserving tropical biodiversity.

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 340-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poliana Gabriella Araújo Mendes ◽  
Maria Amanda Menezes Silva ◽  
Tassiane Novacosque Feitosa Guerra ◽  
Ana Carolina Borges Lins-e-Silva ◽  
Airton de Deus Cysneiros Cavalcanti ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The woody plants in an edge area formed approximately 35 years ago in an Atlantic Forest fragment in northeastern Brazil were examined, and three environments defined: edge, intermediate, and interior. Canopy tree densities and basal areas were found to be similar in all three environments, and also similar to previous published studies in the same region; species richness was greatest at the forest edge. The understory showed greater species richness in the forest interior, but greater diversity and equitability in the intermediate environment. Understory environments close to the forest edge demonstrated larger stem diameters than in the forest interior, although at lesser densities and with smaller total basal areas. Our results indicated the existence of distinct patterns in canopy and understory that most likely reflect differences in the response times of these two vegetation layers, with the understory being more sensitive to alterations in environmental structure.


Rodriguésia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andréia Zelenski ◽  
Rafael Louzada

Abstract A taxonomic treatment of the genera Turnera and Piriqueta in the state of Pernambuco, northeastern Brazil, is presented. Fourteen species of Turnera and six species of Piriqueta were found in the Atlantic Forest and Caatinga, of which nine are endemic to Brazil. Turnera pernambucensis is threatened and restricted to the Atlantic Forest of Pernambuco, while T. joelii is a new record for the state. The species predominate in steppe savanna and semideciduous seasonal forest, but several of them grow naturally in anthropized areas. Catimbau National Park is the locality with the highest species richness. Tristyly is recorded for the first time in Piriqueta guianensis. Identification keys, descriptions, illustrations, distribution maps, and comments about habitat, flowering, fruiting, and morphological relationships are provided.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Etielle Barroso de Andrade ◽  
Luiz Norberto Weber ◽  
José Roberto de Souza Almeida Leite

Abstract The Cerrado is one of the most threatened biomes in Brazil. It is estimated that much of its original vegetation has been replaced by some type of human use. This is quite worrying, mainly in the northern part where the number of wildlife inventories is insufficient and creates the false impression of low diversity in the region. The Parque Estadual do Mirador-PEM, located in the south-central region of the state of Maranhão, presents vegetation typical of the Cerrado biome and corresponds to one of 46 priority areas for conservation in the state. Herein, we describe the species richness and composition of the anurofauna from the PEM and analyze the influence of different types of vegetation in its formation. Our inventory was conducted from December 2013 to February 2015, using the active search and auditory census methods on breeding sites in different water bodies of the park. We recorded 31 anuran species belonging to five families (species number in parentheses): Leptodactylidae (14), Hylidae (12), Bufonidae (3), Microhylidae (1) and Phyllomedusidae (1). The rarefaction curve and species richness estimators indicated that the sampling effort was enough to record most of the species in the region. The richness of anurans in the PEM was higher than reported by other authors for several areas of Cerrado. Most species have a wide distribution in Brazil or are strongly associated with the Caatinga or Amazon biomes. Only about 19% are endemic to the Cerrado biome. This study is the first to inventory the anurans species of the south-central region of state of Maranhão and provides important data on amphibian communities from the northern part of the Brazilian Cerrado.


Mammalia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-149
Author(s):  
Marcelo Magioli ◽  
Alex Augusto Abreu Bovo ◽  
Vinicius Alberici ◽  
Katia Maria Paschoaletto Micchi de Barros Ferraz

Abstract This study describes the use of hair traps as a complementary method to obtain samples for stable isotope analysis from medium- and large-sized mammals. We sampled three protected areas within the Atlantic Forest, Brazil. Traps formed an enclosure of ~16 m2 composed of two barbed-wire strands at different heights, baited with corn, salt, fruits and cinnamon powder. Samples were identified using hair microstructure. We identified 11 species – four globally and six nationally threatened – of which 63.6% were frugivorous. We found high species richness with a small sampling effort, indicating that hair traps can prove useful for isotopic ecology and other applied ecological studies.


Author(s):  
Camila Rodrigues Cabral ◽  
Leidiane Pereira Diniz ◽  
Alef Jonathan da Silva ◽  
Gustavo Fonseca ◽  
Luciana Silva Carneiro ◽  
...  

Assessing zooplankton biodiversity is essential to support freshwater management/conservation programs. Here, we investigated the zooplankton community structure from 180 shallow lakes in northeastern Brazil and analyzed them according to biome (Atlantic Forest or Caatinga), the origin of ecosystems (natural or man-made lakes), and habitat type (pelagic or littoral). Additionally, we provided an updated list of zooplankton species. We registered 227 species (137 Rotifera, 65 Cladocera, 25 Copepoda). The most common species of each major group among all lakes were the cladoceran Ceriodaphina cornuta, the rotifers Brachionus havanaensis and Lecane bulla, and the copepod Termocyclops decipiens. Species related to aquatic vegetation, as the Lecanidae rotifers and phytophilous cladocerans, were more frequent along Atlantic Forest biome and natural lakes. On the other hand, species that are bioindicators of eutrophic waters were more common at the Caatinga biome and man-made lakes. Atlantic Forest and Caatinga biomes had similar species richness, but different community compositions for all zooplankton groups, reinforcing the Caatinga significance for the Brazilian aquatic biodiversity. The type of habitat was the most important factor structuring species richness, with higher richness in the littoral region when compared to the pelagic. A result of many unique species of Cladocera and Rotifera associated with the aquatic vegetation were observed. The findings demonstrated that conservation/management plans cannot generalize zooplankton species distribution across different biomes, origins and even within a single lake, between the pelagic and littoral zones.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Renan Maestri ◽  
Daniel Galiano ◽  
Bruno Busnello Kubiak ◽  
Jorge Reppold Marinho

Small land mammals possess features that significantly influence the dynamics of ecosystems and participate in various levels of the food web. In the Brazilian Atlantic Forest the richness of these animals is high, which makes them even more ecologically and numerically relevant in this environment. In this context, we investigated the species composition of small mammals in an unexplored area of southern Brazil, and compared the species composition of this area with other Atlantic Forest regions in order to understand how this community is related to others. The study area was located in an interior Atlantic forest formation, at a transition region between deciduous and Araucaria forests. Small mammals were captured at five collection points using pitfall traps. We compared the species composition found in our studied area with the composition of other 11 studies in different regions by a cluster analysis, and we investigated the presence of spatial autocorrelation between communities with a Mantel test. We recorded 779 individuals from 21 species of small rodents (15 species) and marsupials (six species) during the 13 months of the collection period. This richness was high compared to other studies conducted in the Atlantic Forest formations near to coastline and in interior forest formations. This may be a result of the conditions provided by this transition area (deciduous and Araucaria forests), where could be found elements of the both forests formations, which probably allows the establishment of small mammal species from both forest types. Despite differences in sampling effort of the studies, our results suggest that the interior forest formations may harbor a number of species comparable to the formations near the coast. The species composition of this area was similar to those found in other interior forest formations with the same phytophysiognomy characteristics and at nearby regions, and it was less similar to the distant formations located in southeastern and northeastern Brazil and nearby to the coastline. This can be a result of both the spatial autocorrelation (i.e. more nearby communities tend to have more similar species composition) and the differences of forest characteristics among regions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 2571-2585
Author(s):  
Renata Picolo Scervino ◽  
Lya Carolina da Silva Mariano Pereira

The litter horizon on forests ecosystems acts on the nutrient cycling and on the soil’s microclimate conditions. However,  to reforestation ecosystems the litter attributes can conduct to alterations that can diminish the seedling establishment, as well can act on the herbivory rates. In this context, this study aimed to verify the differences and relationships between woody species diversity, the herbivory index, the litter attributes, and the canopy openness among a fragment of Atlantic Forest on secondary succession and commercial plantation of Eucalyptus saligna Smith abandoned to regeneration. This study was conducted at the Klabin’s Company “Ecological Reserve”, at Telêmaco Borba – PR, Brazil. There weren’t observed differences on the species richness and abundance among the studied sites. Litter mass and thickness were higher in E. saligna environment. However, the litter attributes only presented relationship with the woody vegetation at the Atlantic Forest site, such as abundance and species richness with litter mass (r2=0.53 and r2=0.40, respectively) and abundance with litter thickness (r2=0.63). The herbivory index was greater on the forest patch. The canopy openness was superior in the E. saligna site. At this site, the herbivory index presented a positive relation with the canopy openness (r2=0.48) and a negative with abundance (r2=0.48). Abundance also presented a negative relation with the canopy openness (r2=0.58) in the E. saligna environment. The litter horizon on the E. saligna plantation doesn’t seem to offer restrictions to regeneration of the woody vegetation. However, at this site, the higher canopy openness and the herbivory pressure over the woody vegetation may lead to a lower rate of secondary succession compared to the Atlantic Forest fragment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabio Angelo Melo Soares ◽  
Carlos Eduardo Borges Pinto Ribeiro ◽  
Marcela Regina de Melo Daher ◽  
Deoclécio de Queiroz Guerra ◽  
Stephen Ferrari

The RPPN Carnijó (08° 07’ 07” S, 35° 05’ 32” N) is a 25 hectare fragment of Atlantic Forest located in the municipality of Moreno, Pernambuco. Bats were sampled at this site during a total of 19 months between 2006 and 2008. Four mist-nets were set for six hours each night along trails, the forest edge, natural clearings, and over watercourses, while roosts were located during daytime searches. A total of 518 specimens were captured during 43 nights, representing 20 species in 16 genera. Total species richness was estimated to be 25.7 ± 2.0, and diversity was H’ = 2.07. The family Phyllostomidae predominated, with 98% (N = 509) of the specimens captured. The species recorded represent 28% of the known chiropteran fauna of the state of Pernambuco. The results indicate that the reserve may play a fundamentally important role in the maintenance of local biodiversity by acting as a “stepping stone” linking the larger fragments within the local landscape.


2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Cristina L. Garcia ◽  
Edson S.B. Leal ◽  
Claudia Rohde ◽  
Francisco G. Carvalho-Neto ◽  
Martín A. Montes

Due to the lack of studies with a regional focus on the richness and distribution of the fauna of chiropterans in northeastern Brazil, this paper presents a collection of these data gathered in an extensive literature review. The data analyzed include technical reports of environment consulting agencies, abstracts presented in scientific meetings, monographs, dissertations, theses, papers, scientific notes, short communications, book chapters and books on bats of South America, Brazil and the biomes Amazon, Caatinga, Cerrado and Atlantic Forest. The numbers of municipalities surveyed per biome and the localities, municipalities and species richness for each state and biome in northeastern Brazil were determined. This information indicated the regions lacking more consistent Chiroptera sampling efforts, namely large areas in the Amazon, Caatinga and Cerrado. However, bat surveys in Atlantic Forest environments in most northeastern Brazilian states were considered representative. Although bat populations in some states have been poorly surveyed, the results of this review afford to conclude that a large part of the diversity of bat species known in Brazil has been reported for the northeastern region of the country. This review enlarges the knowledge on bat species richness and distribution in northeastern Brazil, and indicates areas suffering from wide survey gaps.


Phytotaxa ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 201 (1) ◽  
pp. 100 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Lucas Costa-Lima ◽  
MARIA IRACEMA BEZERRA LOIOLA ◽  
MARCCUS ALVES

Erythroxylum Browne (1756: 278) includes about 230–240 species and is the only genus of Erythroxylaceae Kunth (1821: 175) occurring in the Neotropical region (Plowman & Berry 1999, Plowman & Hensold 2004). The eastern and northeastern Brazil and Venezuela are considered centers of its diversity and endemism (Daly 2004). For Brazil, 123 species are recognized, with the greatest species richness in the Atlantic Forest Domain, especially in its northeastern region, where 46 species have been reported, with 17 of them endemic (Loiola & Costa-Lima 2014).


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