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Pseudoscorpiones are compose an ancient order of arachnids, occur in a wide variety of terrestrial habitats worldwide, with representatives of various genera occurring exclusively in insular habitats. The primary objective of this study was to determine the composition and distribution of Pseudoscorpiones within the Brazilian equatorial oceanic islands. To determine Pseudoscorpiones communities and distribution in coastal environmental habitats of the Brazilian equatorial oceanic islands (Fernando de Noronha archipelago, Rocas Atoll and St. Peter and St. Paul rocks), was defined three zones along the insular environmental gradient in the Brazilian equatorial oceanic islands. These zones include the Sand Beach (SB) closest to the intertidal zone, the Slope Forest (SF) with a sloping terrain and the Top Forest (TF) farthest from the beach. Collecting points were distributed in each zones (SB, SF, and TF) at distances greater than 1 km, with four samples collected at each point approximately 12.5 m apart from each other. The TF zone is observed only in Fernando de Noronha. In our study we found pseudoscorpions exclusively on the islands of the Fernando de Noronha archipelago. We collected 5 species from the Hesperolpiidae and Syarinidae families. The SF habitats exhibited greater species richness, while the Upper Forest habitats showed greater population abundance. Notably, we recorded pseudoscorpions (Ideoblothrus amazonicus) in bird nests (Sula dactylatra) on Rata Island, suggesting the use of nests as habitat, reproduction, and, possibly, occasional transport to and from other habitats. No pseudoscorpions were found in SB environments. Landscape changes and tourism can threaten this incredible newly discovered community, vital for monitoring environmental changes in this delicate ecosystem.

Abstract A proposal for taxonomic species description notation is presented to replace the traditional descriptive texts for a coded matrix, avoiding redundant adjectives and subjective descriptions. This is an attempt to enhance the species description rate and to make the descriptions output available to other scientific disciplines, machine learning, interactive and computer‐assisted identification keys, metadata analysis and its applications. The method consists of presenting the description of the overall morphology in a coded matrix, following a character list with detailed observed conditions for each character. The method is dynamic and open to amendments and new data addition as they become available. We test the new method describing five new species of Collembola Symphypleona of the genus Pararrhopalites as a generalized model and made the coded output available. We conclude that a coded taxonomic description is an advance to the traditional taxonomic text, with potential to enhance the global descriptions rate. The generated descriptions are dynamic, expandable and can be easily used in other fields of science, allowing non‐experts to access the data for phylogenetic, biogeographic, ecological studies and metadata analysis. Even though an experienced taxonomist will always be necessary to make a detailed taxonomic description, it is a step forward to a general template to semi‐automated taxon recognition and to future development of auxiliary tools for species description using machine learning and templates to speed up the time‐consuming phase of schematic figures preparation, after the expert interpretations are done.

Abstract Springtails (Collembola) inhabit soils from the Arctic to the Antarctic and comprise an estimated ~32% of all terrestrial arthropods on Earth. Here, we present a global, spatially-explicit database on springtail communities that includes 249,912 occurrences from 44,999 samples and 2,990 sites. These data are mainly raw sample-level records at the species level collected predominantly from private archives of the authors that were quality-controlled and taxonomically-standardised. Despite covering all continents, most of the sample-level data come from the European continent (82.5% of all samples) and represent four habitats: woodlands (57.4%), grasslands (14.0%), agrosystems (13.7%) and scrublands (9.0%). We included sampling by soil layers, and across seasons and years, representing temporal and spatial within-site variation in springtail communities. We also provided data use and sharing guidelines and R code to facilitate the use of the database by other researchers. This data paper describes a static version of the database at the publication date, but the database will be further expanded to include underrepresented regions and linked with trait data.

Springtails are omnipresent soil arthropods, vital for ecosystems. In the first global assessment of springtails, this study shows a 20-fold biomass difference between the tundra and the tropics, with distinct temperature-related patterns for diversity and metabolism that suggest climate change may restructure the functioning of soil biodiversity.

Abstract A hotspot of subterranean Collembola in ferruginous rock caves and Mesovoid Shallow Substratum is revealed by the analysis of pseudocryptic diversity. The diversity is accessed by detailed description of chaetotaxy and slight variation in morphology of 11 new species of Trogolaphysa Mills, 1938 (Collembola, Paronellidae, Paronellinae) and the 50 previously recorded species of springtails from caves, using optical and electronic microscopy. When combined with recent subterranean surveys, our results show an important reservoir of cave diversity in the Mesovoid Shallow Substratum. Contrastingly the conservation policy for subterranean fauna in metallogenic areas in Brazil prioritizes the caves instead the cave species, which may be extremely detrimental to the fauna in the shallow subterranean habitats not accessible to humans.

Boreal peatlands are important ecosystems for carbon cycling because they store 1/3 of the world’s terrestrial carbon in only ∼3% of the global landmass. This high carbon storage capacity makes them a key potential mitigation strategy for increased carbon emissions induced by global climate warming. In high-carbon storage systems like peatlands, soil faunal communities are responsible for secondary decomposition of organic matter and nutrient cycling, which suggests they play an important role in the carbon cycle. Experiments have shown that warming can affect plant and microbial communities in ways that potentially shift peatlands from carbon sinks to sources. Although previous studies have found variable effects of climate change manipulations on soil communities, warming is expected to affect soil community composition mainly through reductions in moisture content, whereas elevated CO2 atmospheric concentrations are expected to only indirectly and weakly do so. In this study we used a large-scale peatland field-based experiment to test how soil microarthropod (oribatid and mesostigmatid mite, and collembolan species abundance, richness and community composition) respond to a range of experimental warming temperatures (between 0°C and +9°C) crossed with elevated CO2 conditions over 4 years in the Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE) experiment. Here we found that warming significantly decreased surface peat moisture, which in turn decreased species microarthropod richness and abundance. Specifically, oribatid and mesostigmatid mite, collembolan, and overall microarthropod richness significantly decreased under lower moisture levels. Also, the abundance of microarthropods increased under higher moisture levels. Neither warming nor elevated [CO2] affected microarthropods when analysed together or separate, except for the richness of mesostigmatids that significantly increased under warming. At the community level, communities varied significantly over time (except collembolans), and moisture was an important driver explaining community species composition. While we expect that the cumulative and interactive effects of the SPRUCE experimental treatments on soil faunal biodiversity will continue to emerge, our results already suggest effects are becoming more observable over time. Taken together, the changes belowground indicate potential changes on carbon and nitrogen cycles, as microarthropods are important players of soil food webs.

We presented a synthesis of Brazilian Entomobryomorpha species and new records of the Brazilian oceanic islands located in the Equatorial Atlantic. In this work, we observed the global distributions of the species that inhabit the Brazilian oceanic islands. We presented distribution maps for all species found on the islands and the closest records on the continent. Our study showed that species that occur in the islands also occur in the American continent, mainly in the neotropical region, or are widespread. We established a new neotype of the first species of Collembola described in Brazil together with a detailed morphological study.