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Anthropogenic changes in habitats are one of the main threats to biodiversity. Understanding how species diversity and their functions are affected by these changes is crucial to assess environmental impacts. In this work, we aim to understand how lizard composition, taxonomic and functional diversity respond to differences in native vegetation regeneration stages (conserved vegetation and open secondary vegetation) and agricultural land use in different vegetation types (Caatinga sensu stricto, Cerrado sensu stricto and Relictual Humid Forest) in Caatinga domain, Brazil. In more degraded areas (open secondary vegetation and agricultural areas), we found a decline in species evenness, shown by greater dominance of few species. Moreover, we found a lower functional evenness in agricultural areas than in areas of conserved vegetation, which suggests that a smaller portion of functional traits present greater dominance in more anthropized areas. We did not detect any significant differences in species richness, but we did registered differences in species composition in Relictual Humid Forest. Contrary to our expectations, lizard abundance was also greater in more degraded areas, probably as a result of the increased abundance of species benefited by anthropization. In this work, we advance the knowledge of how anthropogenic changes influence lizard diversity and emphasize the importance of analysing different facets of diversity and different habitat environments to understand how anthropization affects patterns in community ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conversion of Brazilian savanna into exotic pastures leads to the loss of dung beetles and a decrease in their contribution to ecological functions. We hypothesized that the dung beetle communities from exotic pastures would show greater significant differences between climatic zones, when contrasted to communities from Brazilian savanna in the same region, since dung beetle assemblages in pastures are more simplified. We assessed which variables (purpose of production, type of management, percentage the habitat per buffer, soil penetration resistance, pasture area and herd size) affect more the dung beetle community in exotic pastures. We carried out this study in 48 areas of native Brazilian savannas and exotic pastures distributed across four bioclimatic zones: BZ1, hot with three dry months; BZ2, hot with 4–5 dry months; BZ3, sub‐hot with 4–5 dry months and BZ4, meso‐thermal with 4–5 dry months of Minas Gerais State, Brazil. In each BZ, six areas of Brazilian savannas and six areas of exotic pasture were selected. In the Brazilian savanna areas, the species richness, abundance and biomass of dung beetles did not differ between the bioclimatic zones, unlike the exotic pastures. The composition of the dung beetle community was different between land use systems and between bioclimatic zones; the interaction between the two factors was also significant. Our results provide evidence that dung beetle communities active in exotic pastures are more susceptible to climatic environmental variations than communities from more complex and stable habitats, such as savannas. Finally, the best model suggested that all the six variables combined explained about 91% of the total variability in species composition observed between sampling sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]