133 Results Found

Event-based biogeographic methods, such as dispersal-extinction-cladogenesis, have become increasingly popular for attempting to reconstruct the biogeographic history of organisms. Such methods employ distributional data of sampled species and a date...

Identification of priority areas for conservation is crucial for the maintenance and protection of biodiversity, particularly in tropical forests where biodiversity continues to be lost at alarming rates. Surveys and research on umbrella species can...

The Amazon, and Neotropical forests, are one of the most important global biomes because of their extent and unique biodiversity, as well as their importance to global climate and as a habitat and resource for humans. Unravelling the influence of hum...

Tropical dry forests (TDFs) are among the ecosystems most threatened by agricultural use and climate warming. However, the long-term growth responses to climate variability of woody plants in TDFs are understudied because not all TDF species form con...

Tropical forests are incredibly diverse in structure and function. Despite, or perhaps because of, this diversity, tropical biologists often conduct research exclusively in one or perhaps a few forest types. Rarely do we study the ecotone—the i...

We hypothesized that neotropical Myrtaceae could be organized into groups that are naturally less or non-responsive to NO3−, and that use other N forms, such as amino acids, for internal N transport. Ecophysiological tests were conducted to mea...

Few studies analyze people’s preferences for ecosystem services (ES), disservices (ED) and drivers of change in less populated, tropical municipalities. Understanding such preferences and needs by the community and stakeholder groups before actually...

Climatic variations influence the adaptive capacity of trees within tropical montane cloud forests species. Phenology studies have dominated current studies on tree species. Leaf vein morphology has been related to specific climatic oscillations and...

(1) Background: Southern Amazonia encompasses some of the most human-impacted and deforested regions of South America, resulting in a hyper-fragmented landscape. In this context, by using a geometric morphometrics approach, we aimed to examine the ef...

The lack of knowledge regarding many aerial insectivorous bats and their relationships with forest characteristics limits conservation decision-making for tropical rainforests and for this important bat group. Therefore, our objective was to understa...

Faunal mortality from roadkill has a negative impact on global biodiversity, and bats are among the roadkilled animals. In South America, the Atlantic Forest covers southeastern Brazil, a region which sustains a large bat diversity. In this biome, th...

Urbanization poses important environmental, social, and ecological pressures, representing a major threat to biodiversity. However, urban areas are highly heterogeneous, with some greenspaces (e.g., urban forests, parks, private gardens) providing re...

Spiders have been increasingly used as environmental and ecological indicators in conservation and ecosystem management. In the Neotropics, there is a shortage of information regarding spiders’ taxonomies and ecological responses to anthropogenic dis...

Forest plantations in the Neotropics aim to alleviate pressure on primary forests. This study synthesizes knowledge on pine species used in these plantations, emphasizing the challenges and potential of ectomycorrhizal fungi and bacteria as inoculant...

Habitat fragmentation and land use changes threaten neotropical habitats and alter patterns of diversity at forest edges. Like other arthropod assemblages, neotropical fruit-feeding butterfly communities show strong vertical stratification within for...

Bromeliads are a Neotropical family of monocots, colonized by several families of ciliates, with some species that inhabit only this type of microecosystems. Ecological factors such as the presence of water, plant volume, seasonality and predators, h...

Neotropical forested landscapes have become agricultural areas and human settlements, causing forest fragmentation, land degradation, and habitat loss. Nonetheless, complex tree cover loss and recovery processes may occur even while urban areas expan...

In many species of animals, males aggregate in particular locations and produce calls to attract searching females for reproduction. One striking feature of such choruses is synchronization. On a scale of hours, choruses are often concentrated at par...

This study evaluated the response of bat communities, from a taxonomic and functional perspective, to variation in the vegetation and landscape attributes produced by anthropogenic activities. We characterized the following: (1) the community of phyl...

Understanding the ecology of rodent-borne hantaviruses is critical to assessing the risk of spillover to humans. Longitudinal surveys have suggested that hantaviral prevalence in a given host population is tightly linked to rodent ecology and correla...

Lianas (woody vines) are important non-structural elements of all tropical forests. Current field observations across the Neotropics suggest that liana abundance is rising as a result of forest disturbance, increasing atmospheric CO2, and more freque...

Many well-studied animal species use conspicuous, repetitive signals that attract both mates and predators. Orthopterans (crickets, katydids, and grasshoppers) are renowned for their acoustic signals. In Neotropical forests, however, many katydid spe...

Gradient analysis was used to determine factors driving small-scale variation of cloud forest communities harboring Magnolia dealbata, a threatened species and bioculturally relevant tree for the Chinantecan, Mazatecan, Nahuan, and Zapotecan ethnicit...

Hantaviruses are zoonotic pathogens associated with severe human diseases such as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Despite the extensive study of rodent-borne hantaviruses, research on bat-associated hantavirus...

The Microcambevinae are a catfish subfamily endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, comprising rare species with interstitial habits. Microcambevines have been classified in two genera, Listrura and Microcambeva, but the relationships among include...

The importance of forests for biodiversity conservation has been well recognized by the global community; as a result, conservation efforts have increased over the past two decades. In Ecuador, the lack of integrated information for defining and asse...

The diversity of genetic resources is essential to cope with environmental changes. However, despite forests play a crucial role in mitigating changes, genetic knowledge has scarcely been used for forest conservation. In this study, we used nuclear m...

Lampyridae taxonomy has traditionally relied on a few characters now deemed to be highly homoplastic, and their classification—especially at the genus level—is yet to be consolidated based on rigorous phylogenetic analyses. Recent studies...

Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla King) is a species with great economic interest worldwide and is classified as vulnerable to extinction by the IUCN. Deforestation and climate change are the main hazards to this species. Therefore, it is vital to desc...

Forestry management can shape the structure of habitat types and have important biological consequences on the composition of biodiversity. This study focused on Momotus lessonii and Eumomota superciliosa, two potential bioindicators of local and wid...

Understanding the evolution and the effect of plasticity in plant responses to environmental changes is crucial to combat global climate change. It is particularly interesting in species that survive in distinct environments, such as Eugenia uniflora...

Miroculis (Ommaethus) Savage and Peters, 1983 (Ephemeroptera, Leptophlebiidae) is reviewed based on fresh material from Southeastern Brazil and on type specimens. Miroculis (Ommaethus) cipoensis sp. n. is described based on male and female imagos fro...

This research seeks to understand how tree species richness and diversity relates to field data (1-ha plots) on forest structure (stems, basal area) and lidar derived data on topography and three-dimensional forest structure along an elevational grad...

The genus Tropicohilara gen. nov. (Diptera: Empididae: Empidinae: Hilarini) is described and includes the following six new species from Brazil: Tropicohilara amazonensis sp. nov. (type species, Brazil: Amazonas, Manaus); T. bahiensis ...

Hybridization and introgression are complex evolutionary mechanisms that can increase species diversity and lead to speciation, but may also lead to species extinction. In this study, we tested the presence and genetic consequences of hybridization b...

The Colombian Orinoquia was shaped within a tectonic and sedimentary framework linked to the uplift of the Andean cordilleras during the Oligocene–Miocene. This orogenic event generated two tectonic fronts and facilitated extensive fluvial sedi...

Fragmentation threatens biodiversity and forest-dwelling animals can be especially vulnerable. Neotropical primates inhabit forests and play ecological roles in maintaining forest biodiversity. Currently, many primate communities are restricted to fo...

Although the Neotropics are recognized as a region rich in biological diversity, the origin, evolution, and maintenance of this phenomenon continues to be debated. Historical ecologists and landscape archaeologists point out that the Neotropics have...

We present a dated and calibrated molecular phylogeny for one of the most characteristic genera of Neotropical savannas, Byrsonima (Malpighiaceae), based on the ETS, ITS, and psbA-trnH markers. We sampled 33 species of Byrsonima and four species of t...

Spatial information on forest functional composition is needed to inform management and conservation efforts, yet this information is lacking, particularly in tropical regions. Canopy foliar traits underpin the functional biodiversity of forests, and...

Aspects of territorial behavior of Nearctic-neotropical migratory birds during the nonbreeding period are poorly studied. Information about territoriality, site persistence, between-year site fidelity, and territory sizes are not available for most b...

Protophthiracarus afthonos sp. nov. is described and illustrated using line drawings, transmitted light and SEM imaging. It is characterized by an extraordinary richness of notogastral setae (ca. 166 pairs) that has been previously unseen among phthi...

The genus Orthopoxvirus (OPXV) of the family Poxviridae comprises several viruses that are capable of infecting a wide range of hosts. One of the most widespread OPXVs is the Vaccinia virus (VACV), which circulates in zoonotic cycles in South America...

Dicranocentrus Schött is the most diverse and widespread taxon of Neotropical Orchesellidae. In Brazil, the genus is represented by 11 species found in humid forested areas of Atlantic and Amazon forests domains. Here we describe in detail Dicra...

In Neotropical bats, studies on bite force have focused mainly on differences in trophic ecology, and little is known about whether factors other than body size generate interspecific differences in bite force amongst insectivorous bats and, conseque...

The neotropical agroecosystems are important areas in the global scene in terms of livestock production. Therefore, a good conservation of their soils is crucial in order to both guarantee food safety and reduce the impact of land degradation process...

The tropical montane cloud forest in Mexico is the most diverse and threatened ecosystem. Mexican macrofungi numbers more than 1408 species. This study described four new species of Agaricomycetes (Bondarzewia, Gymnopilus, Serpula, Sparassis) based o...

Vertical stratification is a key component of the biological complexity of rainforests. Understanding community- and species-level responses to disturbance across forest strata is paramount for evidence-based conservation and management. However, eve...

The Guiana Shield of South America contains savannas within one of the largest contiguous expanses of pristine tropical rainforest remaining in the world, but biodiversity in the grasslands is poorly known. In lowland Neotropical areas, bats typicall...

The tropical montane cloud forest is the most diverse and threatened vegetation type in Mexico. In the last decade, the number of described Ascomycetes species has notably increased, reaching more than 1300 species. This study describes six new speci...