Search

Global sustainability rests on a myriad of benefits provided by natural ecosystems that support human livelihoods and well-being, from biodiversity persistence to climate regulation. The undeniable importance of conserving tropical forests has drawn most of the conservation spotlight towards it. However, open ecosystems such as the Brazilian Campo Rupestre (rupestrian grassland), have been historically overlooked despite their high diversity and key associated ecosystem services. We highlight major current threats to the persistence of the Campo Rupestre emphasizing its ecological, social, cultural, geo-environmental, and economic importance. We call attention to the importance of the Campo Rupestre as a reservoir of biodiversity and ecosystem services and offer priority actions that resulted from discussions involving scientists, industry representatives, environmental managers, and other members of civil society. Proposed actions include efforts related to ecological restoration, sustainable ecotourism, protection of traditional ecological knowledge, identification of emerging research questions, and development of tailored public policies. Such issues are integrated into a framework that collectively represents a road map to safeguard the Campo Rupestre from further degradation and steer its historical overexploitation towards sustainable management. Safeguarding the future of non-forest biomes like this poses a challenge to current paradigms of nature conservation. By establishing priorities and guidelines, we propose an actionable plan, which we hope can support informed decision-making policy towards a sustainable use of the Campo Rupestre. more...

Ecological communities vary considerably in space and time and understanding such changes has fundamental relevance for ecology and conservation sciences. Mountains provide an excellent scenario for studies addressing spatial and temporal variation, as they vary in conditions and resources in a small geographic region. Here, we aimed to understand the patterns of variation in ant metacommunity composition across time and along an elevational gradient in a tropical mountain, focusing both on the taxonomic and functional facets of diversity. We used a β-diversity metric and broke it into nestedness and turnover to estimate short-term temporal changes in ant metacommunity composition. We tested the following hypotheses: (i) taxonomic and functional temporal β-diversity increase along the elevational gradient and (ii) turnover is the main component driving taxonomic temporal β-diversity and nestedness for functional temporal β-diversity. Rejecting our first hypothesis, we found that both taxonomic and functional temporal β-diversity did not increase with elevation. Yet, the values were always high, indicating that both species and functional traits are highly variable over time. In accordance with our second hypothesis, we found that turnover was the main component of taxonomic β-diversity. Yet adding complexity to our hypothesis, the contribution of nestedness to functional β-diversity decreased with increasing elevation. These results suggest that at low elevations, the turnover in species composition may then cause changes in trait composition because of the loss of some traits, yet preserving the most common functions (nested functional communities), while at high elevations functional capabilities may change over time (turnover of traits). In the context of global warming, where tropical mountain insects are expected to change their distributional range upwards, it is extremely important to consider the importance of the turnover on the temporal variation in functional traits and functions of ant metacommunity at higher elevations. more...

Cecropia are pioneer successional trees frequently associated with ants. Generally a single dominant colony of Azteca ant inhabits each mature Cecropia tree, but other ant species may be found living or foraging on the same tree. In this study, we assessed the diversity of ant species on Cecropia pachystachya trees in two sites in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: a dust-free roadside and a dusty roadside. We also investigated the influence of tree architecture on ant species richness. We found a total of 24 ant species distributed in 11 genera and five subfamilies on C. pachystachya trees; 18 in the dust-free roadside and 14 in the dusty roadside. We found up to five ant species on a single tree, but only Azteca alfari was frequently encountered. Ant species richness per tree did not differ significantly between sites and was related to tree architectural traits. On the other hand, ant species composition on trees differed significantly between sites. Our study indicates that heavy dust deposition on Cecropia trees may affect associated ant communities, not by changing ant species richness, but by causing different species to live and forage on trees under different dust exposure. more...