The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG) is a Brazilian research institution and museum located in the city of Belém, state of Pará. It was founded in 1866 by Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna as the Pará Museum of Natural History and Ethnography, and was later named in honor of Swiss naturalist Émil August Goeldi, who reorganized the institution and was its director from 1894 to 1905. It is open to the public from 9:00 to 17:00 h, daily except Mondays..
In post-mining landscapes of Amazonia, evaluating faunal responses during early successional stages is essential for understanding habitat restoration trajectories and for identifying sensitive bioindicators capable of tracking ecosystem recovery. Herbivorous beetles constitute a highly host-dependent group whose diversity, specialization, and spatial turnover can reveal how resource heterogeneity and vegetation structure shape community reassembly in regenerating ecosystems. The objective of this study was to assess whether a five-year period of natural regeneration provides sufficient structural and resource heterogeneity to support a weevil community (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) converging toward that of adjacent forest remnants. We sampled leaf-dwelling Curculionidae across seven natural regeneration sites and seven altered primary forest remnants using standardized arboreal arthropod beating methods. We recorded 482 individuals across 114 morphotypes, with forest remnants harboring greater richness, higher effective diversity, and distinct dominance–evenness patterns compared to natural regeneration sites. Tree richness was the main predictor of weevil abundance, species richness, and diversity of common taxa. Both habitats exhibited high species turnover among sampling units, yet multivariate analyses revealed clear compositional differences between forest and regenerating areas. Our findings indicate that five years of natural regeneration is insufficient for re-establishing a Curculionidae community structurally or compositionally comparable to forest remnants. These results demonstrate that the recovery of weevil assemblages remains strongly limited by reduced host-plant heterogeneity and suggest that enrichment planting of key tree species may accelerate restoration trajectories.
In this study, we update the phylomitogenomic relationships of Hediste (Annelida, Polychaeta, Nereididae), with the inclusion of Hediste sinesimplex as a recently described species from the Mediterranean and Northeast Atlantic. Phylogenetic inference using maximum likelihood, based on 13 Protein-Coding Genes (PCGs) from nereidid species, confirms the position of the recently described H. sinesimplex within the genus Hediste showing a closed relationship with the sympatric Hediste diversicolor. We also describe the complete mitochondrial genome of H. sinesimplex which is composed by of 15,876 bp genome size, with a GC content of 34.4
Bees are essential for ecosystem functioning, pollinating many wild and crop plant species. Predicting which species are most vulnerable to global changes, and how their loss may impact ecosystems and human well-being, is critical. Comprehensive information on bee response and effect traits is fundamental to these assessments. However, the Raunkiærian shortfall-insufficient trait data-remains significant for bees, particularly in the Neotropics. Moreover, it remains uncertain whether conservation strategies based on functional diversity from temperate regions can be generalized to the Neotropics. To address this gap, we compiled a comprehensive and validated dataset on Brazilian bee traits, covering 24 traits related to sociality (100% of the species with some information), nesting (88%), body size (71%), and buzzing capacity (42%) on 2,066 Brazilian bee species. The trait data here presented is a crucial resource for evaluating bee species' pollination effectiveness and susceptibility to global change. Comparative analysis with regions with ample trait data-USA, Europe, and China-revealed notable differences. Brazilian bees exhibited a higher prevalence of aboveground nesting species, especially compared to Europe. The proportion of eusocial species was also greater than in Europe and the United States, and more similar to China. Differently from other regions, Brazilian eusocial bees were significantly smaller than their non-eusocial counterparts. These cross-regional comparisons highlight the importance of geographically tailored conservation strategies and underscore the need for extensive trait data to accurately predict regional vulnerabilities and ecological impacts in a rapidly changing world.
Habitat complexity influences the diversity and structure of biological communities by determining the availability and heterogeneity of environmental resources. Spiders, widely recognized as effective environmental bioindicators, are particularly sensitive to changes in habitat structure. This study evaluated how habitat complexity, measured through multiple environmental variables, affects the ground-dwelling spider community in gallery forests, and identified threshold points in species frequency and abundance in relation to these variables. Spiders were sampled using pitfall traps, and environmental variables including canopy cover, understory complexity, grass cover, soil pH and moisture, and litter cover, depth, weight, and composition were measured. A total of 36 samples were collected, yielding 1474 specimens distributed among 112 species/morphospecies and 31 families. The results showed significant interaction effects between canopy cover, litter depth, and litter composition on spider abundance. Furthermore, critical changes in variables such as canopy cover, grass cover, and litter cover, depth, and composition indicate that habitat structure plays a relevant role in the frequency and abundance of individual species. Leprolochus mucuge, Nosferattus sp.1, and Camillina sp.1 were identified as potential indicator species for monitoring environmental degradation in forested areas, while Epicratinus pikachu may serve as an indicator of forest conservation. These findings emphasize the importance of habitat structural for shaping species-specific responses and support the use of ground-dwelling spiders as bioindicators. The identification of indicator species provides valuable information for monitoring programs, management actions, and conservation planning in the Cerrado domain.
Amphisbaenians are fossorial squamates characterized by extreme cranial specialization, particularly in snout morphology. Whether variation in external rostral form predicts internal cranial anatomy remains poorly understood. We present the first large-scale comparative analysis of amphisbaenian endocranial morphology, using three-dimensional landmark data from endocasts of 50 species representing all major families and snout morphotypes. Endocasts within Amphisbaenia share general squamate features typical of fossorial taxa. Phylogeny shows a weak but significant signal in endocast shape, while allometry shows no detectable effect. Snout morphology contributes modestly to endocranial variation, and substantial differences among taxa sharing the same snout shape indicate that anterior cranial modifications influence the braincase locally. Convergence and disparity analyses reveal limited, case-specific similarities across morphotypes, with similar endocranial configurations arising only sporadically in different lineages. Overall, amphisbaenian endocasts display considerable morphological variability and extreme snout modifications linked to digging performance do not produce a single, predictable endocranial configuration. These results suggest that endocranial shape reflects the interaction of multiple evolutionary factors. Future studies should explore additional sources of variation-such as ontogeny, sexual dimorphism, sensory biology, external forces or cranial musculature-to fully understand endocranial diversity in this clade.
