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This study aimed to evaluate the allelopathic potential of Crotalaria spp. to control guinea grass (Panicum maximum Jacq.). Experiments were done on germination and development of P. maximum in Petri-plate Lab Bioassays with the seed exudates of germinating seeds germination water of seed and leaf extract of C. juncea and also in Pot Culture coexistence by sowing and transplantation of two test species. Among the species studied, C. juncea gave the best result to inhibit the germination of target plant, hence, it was selected for further studies. The germination results showed that the highest densities (5, 10 and 20) of C. juncea affect different stages of P. maximum. The higher the concentration of bioextract from C. juncea, the lower was development of P. maximum was decreased with doses from 25 to 100 % for its control. The greater was the density and concentration of C. juncea extracts, the greater was the decrease in germination speed, germination (%), root length, plant height and dry mass weight of P. maximum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Soil animal communities include more than 40 higher-order taxa, representing over 23% of all described species. These animals have a wide range of feeding sources and contribute to several important soil functions and ecosystem services. Although many studies have assessed macroinvertebrate communities in Brazil, few of them have been published in journals and even fewer have made the data openly available for consultation and further use. As part of ongoing efforts to synthesise the global soil macrofauna communities and to increase the amount of openly-accessible data in GBIF and other repositories related to soil biodiversity, the present paper provides links to 29 soil macroinvertebrate datasets covering 42 soil fauna taxa, collected in various land-use systems in Brazil. A total of 83,085 georeferenced occurrences of these taxa are presented, based on quantitative estimates performed using a standardised sampling method commonly adopted worldwide to collect soil macrofauna populations, i.e. the TSBF (Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Programme) protocol. This consists of digging soil monoliths of 25 x 25 cm area, with handsorting of the macroinvertebrates visible to the naked eye from the surface litter and from within the soil, typically in the upper 0-20 cm layer (but sometimes shallower, i.e. top 0-10 cm or deeper to 0-40 cm, depending on the site). The land-use systems included anthropogenic sites managed with agricultural systems (e.g. pastures, annual and perennial crops, agroforestry), as well as planted forests and native vegetation located mostly in the southern Brazilian State of Paraná (96 sites), with a few additional sites in the neighbouring states of São Paulo (21 sites) and Santa Catarina (five sites). Important metadata on soil properties, particularly soil chemical parameters (mainly pH, C, P, Ca, K, Mg, Al contents, exchangeable acidity, Cation Exchange Capacity, Base Saturation and, infrequently, total N), particle size distribution (mainly % sand, silt and clay) and, infrequently, soil moisture and bulk density, as well as on human management practices (land use and vegetation cover) are provided. These data will be particularly useful for those interested in estimating land-use change impacts on soil biodiversity and its implications for below-ground foodwebs, ecosystem functioning and ecosystem service delivery., New Information: Quantitative estimates are provided for 42 soil animal taxa, for two biodiversity hotspots: the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and Cerrado biomes. Data are provided at the individual monolith level, representing sampling events ranging from February 2001 up to September 2016 in 122 sampling sites and over 1800 samples, for a total of 83,085 ocurrences., (George G. Brown, Wilian C Demetrio, Quentin Gabriac, Amarildo Pasini, Vanesca Korasaki, Lenita J. Oliveira, Julio C.F. dos Santos, Eleno Torres, Paulo R. Galerani, Dionisio L. P. Gazziero, Norton P. Benito, Daiane H. Nunes, Alessandra Santos, Talita Ferreira, Herlon S. Nadolny, Marie L. C. Bartz, Wagner Maschio, Rafaela T. Dudas, Mauricio R. G. Zagatto, Cintia C. Niva, Lina A. Clasen, Klaus D. Sautter, Luis C.M. Froufe, Carlos Eduardo S. Seoane, Aníbal de Moraes, Samuel James, Odair Alberton, Osvaldino Brandão Júnior, Odilon Saraiva, Antonio Garcia, Elma Oliveira, Raul M. César, Beatriz S. Corrêa-Ferreira, Lilianne S. M. Bruz, Elodie da Silva, Gilherme B. X. Cardoso, Patrick Lavelle, Elena Velásquez, Marcus Cremonesi, Lucília M. Parron, Amilton J. Baggio, Edinelson Neves, Mariangela Hungria, Thiago A. Campos, Vagner L. da Silva, Carlos B. Reissmann, Ana C. Conrado, Jean-Pierre D. Bouillet, José L. M. Gonçalves, Carolina B. Brandani, Ricardo A. G. Viani, Ranieri R. Paula, Jean-Paul Laclau, Clara P Peña-Venegas, Carlos Peres, Thibaud Decaëns, Benjamin Pey, Nico Eisenhauer, Miguel Cooper, Jérôme Mathieu.)

The Brazilian Cerrado, a hotspot and the largest savannah in the world, has been undergoing intense changes in land use for urbanization. The creation and maintenance of urban parks and public squares is one efficient biodiversity conservation strategy in urbanized landscapes. In this study, our objective was to evaluate the potential of urban parks with native vegetation for conservation of flower chafer beetles (Coleoptera: Cetoniinae), a beetle group usually used as a bioindicator in African landscapes, in Brazilian Cerrado. We sampled Cetoniinae beetles using aerial fruit-baited traps, every 2 wk from January to December 2014 in 10 areas of Cerrado in Aquidauana, MS, Brazil. We compared the species richness, abundance, biomass, and species composition between six 'natural reserve' areas (outside the urban matrix) and four 'urban park' areas (within the urban matrix), and identified specialist species of each habitat type. A total 508 individuals of nine species were captured. The abundance, species richness, and biomass were similar between natural reserve and urban park. However, species composition differed among the habitats. Gymnetis flava (Weber) was classified as an urban park specialist, while Euphoria lurida (Fabricius), and Hoplopyga liturata (Olivier) were classified as natural reserve specialists. Our results demonstrate that urban parks conserve the abundance, biomass and species richness of flower chafer beetles in the Brazilian Cerrado. In this context, our results suggest that the maintenance of the urban park with native vegetation can be an efficient strategy for the conservation of Cetoniinae beetles in the urban matrix in the Brazilian Cerrado.

Dung beetles are globally used in ecological research and are useful for assessing the effects of anthropic and natural changes in environment on biodiversity. Here we investigate how the choice of baits (human feces, cattle dung, carrion or a combination of all three) and sampling season influence the taxonomic and functional diversity of insects captured in traps in Brazilian pastures. We sampled dung beetles in July 2011 (dry season) and January 2012 (rainy season) in eight areas: four pastures with native grasses (e.g., Andropogon spp. and Axonopus spp.) and four pastures with introduced grasses (Urochloa spp.) in Aquidauana, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. To collect the insects, we used pitfall traps baited with carrion, cattle dung and human feces. A total of 7,086 dung beetles of 32 species were captured. In both pasture types, only traps baited with human feces captured similar abundance, species richness, and functional diversity compared with the sum total of beetles captured by the three bait types. The species richness and functional diversity were higher in the rainy season in both pasture types. Our results demonstrate that using human feces alone as bait and sampling dung beetles in the rainy season are potentially sufficient to ensure the greatest number of functional traits, species, and individuals in both pasture types. Thus, the best sampling method observed in this study may be useful for studies focused on dung beetle fauna survey and rigorous comparison among studies on these insects in Brazilian pastures., (© The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Background: Conserving biodiversity in tropical landscapes is a major challenge to scientists and conservationists. Current rates of deforestation, fragmentation, and land use intensification are producing variegated landscapes with undetermined values for the conservation of biological communities and ecosystem functioning. Here, we investigate the importance of tropical variegated landscapes to biodiversity conservation, using dung beetle as focal taxa., Methods: The study was carried out in 12 variegated landscapes where dung beetles were sampled using six pitfall traps, 30 m apart from each other, along a transect in each studied landscape use and cover classes-LUCC (forest fragment and corridor, coffee plantation, and pasture). We baited each pitfall trap with 30 g of human feces and left open for a 48 h period. We also measured three environmental variables reflecting structural differences among the studied classes: canopy cover, local vegetation heterogeneity and soil sand content., Results: We collected 52 species and 2,695 individuals of dung beetles. We observed significant differences in the mean species richness, abundance and biomass among classes, with forest fragments presenting the highest values, forest corridors and coffee plantations presenting intermediate values, and pastures the lowest values. Regarding community structure, we also found significant differences among classes. Canopy cover was the only variable explaining variation in dung beetle species richness, abundance, biomass, and community structure. The relative importance of spatial turnover was greater than nestedness-resultant component in all studied landscapes., Discussion: This study evaluated the ecological patterns of dung beetle communities in variegated tropical landscapes highlighting the importance of these landscapes for conservation of tropical biodiversity. However, we encourage variegation for the management of landscapes that have already been fragmented or as a complementary initiative of current conservation practices (e.g., protection of natural habitats and establishment of reserves)., Competing Interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests.

The capybara, Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris (L.) (Rodentia: Caviidae), is the largest herbivorous rodent on Earth and abundant in the Neotropical region, which can provide a stable food source of dung for dung beetle communities (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae). However, the use of capybara dung by dung beetles is poorly known. Here, we present data on the structure of the dung beetle community attracted to capybara dung and compare with the community attracted to human feces. Dung beetles were captured with pitfall traps baited with fresh capybara dung and human feces in pastures with exotic grass (Brachiaria spp.), patches of Brazilian savanna (Cerrado), and points of degraded riparian vegetation along the Aquidauana river in Anastácio and Aquidauana, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. In traps baited with human feces, 13,809 individuals of 31 species were captured, and in those baited with capybara dung 1,027 individuals belonging to 26 species were captured. The average number of individuals and species captured by the traps baited with human feces was greater than for capybara dung in all habitats studied. Composition of the communities attracted to human feces and capybara dung formed distinct groups in all habitats. Despite the smaller number of species and individuals captured in capybara dung when compared with human feces, capybara dung was attractive to dung beetles. In Brazil, the legalization of hunting these rodents has been debated, which would potentially affect the community and consequently the ecological functions performed by dung beetles that use the feces of these animals as a resource. In addition, the knowledge of the communities associated with capybaras may be important in predicting the consequences of future management of their populations.

We used dung beetles to evaluate the impact of urbanization on insect biodiversity in three Atlantic Forest fragments in Londrina, Paraná, Brazil. This study provides the first empirical evidence of the impact of urbanization on richness, abundance, composition and guild structure of dung beetle communities from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We evaluated the community aspects (abundance, richness, composition and food guilds) of dung beetles in fragments with different degrees of immersion in the urban matrix using pitfall traps with four alternative baits (rotten meat, rotten fish, pig dung and decaying banana). A total of 1 719 individuals were collected, belonging to 29 species from 11 genera and six Scarabaeinae tribes. The most urban-immersed fragment showed a higher species dominance and the beetle community captured on dung presented the greatest evenness. The beetle communities were distinct with respect to the fragments and feeding habits. Except for the dung beetle assemblage in the most urbanized forest fragment, all others exhibited contrasting differences in species composition attracted to each bait type. Our results clearly show that the degree of urbanization affects Atlantic Forest dung beetle communities and that the preservation of forest fragments inside the cities, even small ones, can provide refuges for Scarabaeinae., (© 2012 The Authors Insect Science © 2012 Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.)

Science has a critical role to play in guiding more sustainable development trajectories. Here, we present the Sustainable Amazon Network (Rede Amazônia Sustentável, RAS): a multidisciplinary research initiative involving more than 30 partner organizations working to assess both social and ecological dimensions of land-use sustainability in eastern Brazilian Amazonia. The research approach adopted by RAS offers three advantages for addressing land-use sustainability problems: (i) the collection of synchronized and co-located ecological and socioeconomic data across broad gradients of past and present human use; (ii) a nested sampling design to aid comparison of ecological and socioeconomic conditions associated with different land uses across local, landscape and regional scales; and (iii) a strong engagement with a wide variety of actors and non-research institutions. Here, we elaborate on these key features, and identify the ways in which RAS can help in highlighting those problems in most urgent need of attention, and in guiding improvements in land-use sustainability in Amazonia and elsewhere in the tropics. We also discuss some of the practical lessons, limitations and realities faced during the development of the RAS initiative so far.

Although there is increasing interest in the effects of habitat disturbance on community attributes and the potential consequences for ecosystem functioning, objective approaches linking biodiversity loss to functional loss are uncommon. The objectives of this study were to implement simultaneous assessment of community attributes (richness, abundance and biomass, each calculated for total-beetle assemblages as well as small- and large-beetle assemblages) and three ecological functions of dung beetles (dung removal, soil perturbation and secondary seed dispersal), to compare the effects of habitat disturbance on both sets of response variables, and their relations. We studied dung beetle community attributes and functions in five land-use systems representing a disturbance gradient in the Brazilian Amazon: primary forest, secondary forest, agroforestry, agriculture and pasture. All response variables were affected negatively by the intensification of habitat disturbance regimes, but community attributes and ecological functions did not follow the same pattern of decline. A hierarchical partitioning analysis showed that, although all community attributes had a significant effect on the three ecological functions (except the abundance of small beetles on all three ecological functions and the biomass of small beetles on secondary dispersal of large seed mimics), species richness and abundance of large beetles were the community attributes with the highest explanatory value. Our results show the importance of measuring ecological function empirically instead of deducing it from community metrics.