Sapindaceae do noroeste paulista: lista de espécies e chave de identificação baseada em caracteres vegetativos

The species identification is usually an obstacle for conservation studies and management. Sapindaceae species are particularly difficult to identify partially due to inconsistent fruit production which is an important feature in defining genera and species. Because of this difficulty of finding fertile material at particular times of the year, the main focus of this study was to identify species of Sapindaceae in northwestern São Paulo and to produce an identification key based on vegetative morphology such as the form and number of leaflets, the number of vascular cylinders in branches to the species of liana, the presence or absence of domatia, and type of indumentum, among others. In this study, researchers identified species of Sapindaceae present in 18 fragments of native vegetation in the region that includes the Turvo Grande, São José dos Dourados, parts of the Low Pardo, Low Tietê and Tietê-Batalha Hydric Resources Management Unit (UGHRIs). An identification key was developed based on herbarium materials and contained 23 species distributed in 11 genera.Departamento de Zoologia e Botânica Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP, Rua Cristóvão Colombo, 2265, CEP 15054-000, São José do Rio Preto, SPDepartamento de Zoologia e Botânica Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP, Rua Cristóvão Colombo, 2265, CEP 15054-000, São José do Rio Preto, S

Day vs. night: the importance of the circadian cycle over metacommunities and predator–prey densities

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Processo FAPESP: 2010/19935-1CNPq: 303435/2013-5Hypothesizing that assembly of mites diverges between sampling periods, our goal was to verify the relative influence of day and night time, climatic parameters and seasonality on the metacommunities of mites associated with Genipa americana L. in Brazil, and on the foraging behaviour of the most abundant predator and phytophagous species. Seasonal variation was a key parameter in metacommunity structure and population dynamics. In contrast, day and night periods and climatic factors had a low importance for most of the response variables, apart from richness that was negatively influenced by temperature. Concerning the population dynamics, time period plays an important role in predator species, but not in phytophagous species. Our results showed that phytophagous mites remain on leaves during both periods, whereas predators seemed to have partitioned their habitat, since some species had a tendency to forage on leaves during the day, while others forage at night. Our finding can be an indicative of behavioural response to intraguild predation or competition. In terms of metacommunity structure and dynamics, sampling period seemed not to affect species composition since we recorded higher turnover rates among trees than between periods in a same tree