A New Species of Cryptopone Emery (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae) from Brazil with Observations of this Genus and a Key for New World Species

The monophyly of Ponerinae was strongly supported by a detailed molecular phylogenetic study. Within the subfamily, substantial changes were yet done to the taxonomy of several genera, such as Cryptopone Emery, and after phylogenetic and morphological considerations, the genus Cryptopone was revived. Cryptopone is a moderately large genus of pantropical distribution, with 25 described species and subspecies, with its diversity centered mostly in East and Southeast Asia. In the New World, only four species were known until now, Cryptopone gilva (Roger), Cryptopone guianensis (Weber), Cryptopone holmgreni (Wheeler) and Cryptopone mirabilis (Mackay & Mackay). Since the Mackay and Mackay’s revision of 2010 of the genus Pachycondyla which included the species currently attributed to Cryptopone, no new species was added to Cryptopone genus in the New World. Recently an unidentified Cryptopone species was collected in the state of Rondônia, Brazil. The material here described was sampled by manual collection of soil in the Floresta Nacional do Jamari (FLONA Jamari). Four individuals belonging to the worker caste are hereafter described under the name of Cryptopone pauli sp. nov. Currently this ant is known only to a single locality in the state of Rondônia, Brazil. This is also the first record of this genus for that state. We present new records of Cryptopone for the Neotropical Region with some comments on its biology and an updated key to workers of the five species of Cryptopone currently known in the New World

Dataset of long-term monitoring of ground-dwelling ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in the influence areas of a hydroelectric power plant on the Madeira River in the Amazon Basin

Background Biodiversity loss is accelerating rapidly in response to increasing human influence on the Earth's natural ecosystems. One way to overcome this problem is by focusing on places of human interest and monitoring the changes and impacts on the biodiversity. This study was conducted at six sites within the influence area of the Santo Antônio Hydroelectric Power Plant in the margins of the Madeira River in Rondônia State. The sites cover a latitudinal gradient of approximately 100 km in the Brazilian Amazon Basin. The sampling design included six sampling modules with six plots (transects) each, totaling 30 sampling plots. The transects were distributed with 0 km, 0.5 km, 1 km, 2 km, 3 km and 4 km, measured perpendicularly from the river margin towards the interior of the forest. For sampling the ground-dwelling ants, the study used the ALL (ants of the leaf litter) protocol, which is standardized globally in the inventories of ant fauna. For the purpose of impact indicators, the first two campaigns (September 2011 to November 2011) were carried out in the prefilling period, while campaigns 3 to 10 (February 2012 to November 2014) were carried out during and after the filling of the hydroelectric reservoir. A total of 253 events with a total of 9,165 occurrences were accounted during the monitoring. The ants were distributed in 10 subfamilies, 68 genera and 324 species/morphospecies. The impact on ant biodiversity during the periods before and after filling was measured by ecological indicators and by the presence and absence of some species/morphospecies. This is the first study, as far as we know, including taxonomic and ecological treatment to monitor the impact of a hydroelectric power plant on ant fauna. New information Until recently, most studies conducted on hydroelectric plants, located in the Amazon Basin, were carried out after the implementation of dams in order to assess their impacts on the environment and biodiversity (Benchimol and Peres 2015, Latrubesse et al. 2017, Sá-Oliveira et al. 2015). Recent studies on dam impacts have begun to be conducted prior to dam implementation (e.g. Bobrowiec and Tavares 2017, Fraga et al. 2014, Moser et al. 2014), thus providing a better overview of the impact and a better assessment of its magnitude. © Fernandes I, de Souza J

Contribution to the knowledge of the genus proceratium roger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Proceratiinae) in the new world

The genus Proceratium Roger comprises rare ants that are irregularly distributed in tropical and temperate regions of the world. Despite this global distribution, these ants are rarely collected, likely due to their cryptobiotic lifestyle. In the New World, the genus comprises 22 known species distributed from Southern Canada to the South of Brazil, and in some Caribbean islands. The taxonomy of the genus Proceratium is here updated for South America. We describe P. amazonicum sp. nov, from Rondônia state and provide distribution data for P. brasiliense, P. convexipes, and P. silaceum. We also present, for the first time, high-resolution images of the P. colombicum type and P. ecuadoriense, and provide a new record of P. micrommatum from Peru, and comment about its morphological variation and distribution. A key for the workers of the P. micrommatum clade is also provided. The species we describe belongs to P. micrommatum clade and represents the second species recorded from Brazil after 60 years, since only P. brasiliense was known previously in the country. © 2019 Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana. All rights reserved

New Records of the Dorylinae Ant Genus Cheliomyrmex for the Brazilian Amazon Basin

The Dorylinae subfamily are dominant invertebrate predators in tropical and subtropical terrestrial ecosystems. The most cryptic army ant genus of the New World is Cheliomyrmex. The only specie recognized until now to the Amazon Brazilian Basin is C. andicola, with record in the state of Acre. We provided the first record of Cheliomyrmex megalonyx to Brazil in the Amazon Basin. This record strongly reinforces the idea that more efforts are needed to reveal the diversity, distribution and biology of such hypogaeic ants

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil: setting the baseline knowledge on the animal diversity in Brazil

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. In this context, the Brazilian megadiverse fauna is no exception, and the Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil (CTFB) (http://fauna.jbrj.gov.br/), made public in 2015, represents a database on biodiversity anchored on a list of valid and expertly recognized scientific names of animals in Brazil. The CTFB is updated in near real time by a team of more than 800 specialists. By January 1, 2024, the CTFB compiled 133,691 nominal species, with 125,138 that were considered valid. Most of the valid species were arthropods (82.3%, with more than 102,000 species) and chordates (7.69%, with over 11,000 species). These taxa were followed by a cluster composed of Mollusca (3,567 species), Platyhelminthes (2,292 species), Annelida (1,833 species), and Nematoda (1,447 species). All remaining groups had less than 1,000 species reported in Brazil, with Cnidaria (831 species), Porifera (628 species), Rotifera (606 species), and Bryozoa (520 species) representing those with more than 500 species. Analysis of the CTFB database can facilitate and direct efforts towards the discovery of new species in Brazil, but it is also fundamental in providing the best available list of valid nominal species to users, including those in science, health, conservation efforts, and any initiative involving animals. The importance of the CTFB is evidenced by the elevated number of citations in the scientific literature in diverse areas of biology, law, anthropology, education, forensic science, and veterinary science, among others

Taxonomia do complexo Pachycondyla foetida (linnaeus, 1758) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Ponerinae) no Brasil

The complex Pachycondyla foetida is the second largest group of species within the genus Pachycondyla, with 11 species recorded for the Neotropical region, and four species recorded from Brazil, they are Pachycondyla foetida, Pachycondyla inversa Pachycondyla theresiae and Pachycondyla villosa. The taxonomic status of the group is still confusing, consisting recent synonyms, absence of analysis of type material for confirmation and determination of species, absence description of caste to species, and an analysis of the distribution of species that compose this complex of the Brazil. Thus, a work covering morphological data, morphometric and ecological data, together with the loan of material (type or not) museum becomes an important tool for the definition of the species that make up the complex foetida. This work has added three new species of the complex foetida, description of males of P. curvinodis and P. inversa (unknowns). Were designated lectotype for P. villosa and P. inversa, made taxonomic keys for workers, females and males, and added information on the biology of the species P. villosa, P. inversa and P. curvinodis. New information about the distribution of the complex species in Brazil were addition, include the record of the P. curvinodis. Now the complex is replaced by eight species recorded for the country, representing a advance in the taxonomy of this group, although much studied, it was misidentified, due to unresolved taxonomic problems.O complexo Pachycondyla foetida é o segundo maior grupo de espécies dentro do gênero Pachycondyla, com 11 espécies registradas para a Região Neotropical, e quatro espécies registradas para o Brasil: Pachycondyla foetida, Pachycondyla inversa, Pachycondyla theresiae e Pachycondyla villosa. Apesar da revisão recente, a situação taxonômica do grupo ainda é confusa, constando sinonimizações recentes, além da ausência de análise de material-tipo para confirmação e determinação das espécies, ausência de castas para relacionar espécies, e uma análise da distribuição das espécies que compõem este complexo para o Brasil. Um estudo abrangendo dados morfológicos, morfométricos e ecológicos, juntamente com o empréstimo de material (tipo ou não) de museus se tornou um passo importante para a definição e esclarecimento das espécies que compõem o complexo foetida. O presente estudo acrescentou três novas espécies ao complexo foetida, além da descrição dos machos de P. curvinodis e P. inversa, até então desconhecidos. Foram designados lectótipos para P. villosa e P. inversa, chaves taxonômicas para operárias, fêmeas e machos foram confeccionadas, além de informações sobre a biologia das espécies P. villosa, P. inversa e P. curvinodis. Novas informações sobre a distribuição das espécies que compõem o complexo no Brasil foram atribuídas, incluindo o registro de P. curvinodis, sendo assim, o complexo passa a ter oito espécies registradas para o país, representando um avanço na taxonomia de um grupo, que apesar de muito estudado, era identificado erroneamente, devido aos problemas taxonômicos mal resolvidos