Building bridges between environmental and political agendas is essential nowadays in face of the increasing human pressure on natural environments, including wetlands. Wetlands provide critical ecosystem services for humanity and can generate a considerable direct or indirect income to the local communities. To meet many of the sustainable development goals, we need to move our trajectory from the current environmental destructive development to a wiser wetland use. The current article contain a proposed agenda for the Pantanal aiming the improvement of public policy for conservation in the Pantanal, one of the largest, most diverse, and continuous inland wetland in the world. We suggest and discuss a list of 11 essential interfaces between science, policy, and development in region linked to the proposed agenda. We believe that a functional science network can booster the collaborative capability to generate creative ideas and solutions to address the big challenges faced by the Pantanal wetland.

Bats have been increasingly studied in the last 15 years in Mato Grosso do Sul, and several records were not yet considered in reviews of South American bat distributions. Here, we present the bat species and their distributions in Mato Grosso do Sul based mainly on data compilation from literature, but also on complementary information from zoological collections, and our and colleagues' unpublished records. We found 74 species of bats within 42 genera and seven families already reported in Mato Grosso do Sul. Bat species in this state represent 44% of the Brazilian's bat species (E 169) and 7% of the world's bat richness (E 1120). Phyllostomidae (42) and Molossidae (17) were the richest families. Four species formerly cited for Mato Grosso do Sul are not supported by our compilation, and other 15 species recorded in the vicinity are listed as potential occurrences in this state. We additionally found controversial traits for specimens of Platyrrhinus helleri, and report Eumops dabbenei for the first time in Brazil. Most species were recorded in the regions of Cerrado (60) or Pantanal (57) in Mato Grosso do Sul, but only 16 in the Atlantic Forest. Records of Phyllostomidae species were mostly found in Cerrado and those of Molossidae, in Pantanal. Records in Mato Grosso do Sul determine edges of distribution for at least 22 species of South American bats. The overall known chiropteran fauna of Mato Grosso do Sul is highly diverse and new findings are expected through additional surveys. Keywords: Cerrado, Chiroptera, geographic distribution, Eumops dabbenei, Pantanal, Platyrrhinus helleri.

Streblidae flies are specialised parasites of bat hosts, mainly phyllostomids. There is a high richness of streblids in the savannah-like Cerrado region; however, there is little quantitative data available in parasitological indices. Here, we describe the component community, prevalence and intensity of a streblid infestation on a phyllostomid bat assemblage in Serra da Bodoquena, a Cerrado region in Southwest Brazil. We conducted surveys by capturing and inspecting bat hosts during the seven-month period between October 2004-December 2005. All the ectoparasites found on the bats were collected in the field and then counted and identified in the laboratory. We captured 327 bats belonging to 13 species, of which eight species were parasitized by 17 species of streblids. Carollia perspicillata and Glossophaga soricina were infested with seven streblid species, whereas the other bat species were infested with four or fewer streblid species. Megistopoda proxima and Aspidoptera falcata flies were found on Sturnira lilium, and Trichobius joblingi was the most prevalent fly on C. perspicillata. Megistopoda aranea and Aspidoptera phyllostomatis were highly prevalent and had a high intensity of infestation on Artibeus planirostris. Overall comparisons of the available data suggest that the component communities of streblids vary more between the Cerrado and Atlantic Forest phytogeographical regions than between localities within the same phytogeographical region

Aim: Among the world's three major nectar-feeding bird taxa, hummingbirds are the most phenotypically specialized for nectarivory, followed by sunbirds, while the honeyeaters are the least phenotypically specialized taxa. We tested whether this phenotypic specialization gradient is also found in the interaction patterns with their floral resources.Location: Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania/Australia. Methods:We compiled interaction networks between birds and floral resources for 79 hummingbird, nine sunbird and 33 honeyeater communities. Interaction specialization was quantified through connectance (C), complementary specialization (H 2 0 ), binary (Q B ) and weighted modularity (Q), with both observed and null-model corrected values. We compared interaction specialization among the three types of bird-flower communities, both independently and while controlling for potential confounding variables, such as plant species richness, asymmetry, latitude, insularity, topography, sampling methods and intensity.Results: Hummingbird-flower networks were more specialized than honeyeaterflower networks. Specifically, hummingbird-flower networks had a lower proportion of realized interactions (lower C), decreased niche overlap (greater H 2 0 ) and greater modularity (greater Q B ). However, we found no significant differences between hummingbird-and sunbird-flower networks, nor between sunbird-and honeyeaterflower networks.

The aim of this paper is to provide a checklist of flying and non-flying mammal species which occur in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, delimiting species by vegetation domains and vulnerability. Records were based on specimens in museums, literature, and only eventually on photos (by camera traps). There are 151 mammal species reported or collected in the state, comprising 10 orders and 29 families. The richest orders were Chiroptera (61 spp.), Rodentia (35), Carnivora (18), and Didelphimorphia (16). The richest families were Phyllostomidae (33 species), Cricetidae (23), Didelphidae (16), Molossidae (13), Vespertilionidae (9), Felidae (7), and Dasypodidae (6). Cerrado was the richest domain (117 spp.) followed by Pantanal (110). According to the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (IBAMA) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 17 species are threatened; they are species of Felidae (n = 6), but also include Canidae (2), Didelphidae (2), Cervidae (1), Dasypodidae (1), Dasyproctidae (1), Mustelidae (1), Myrmecophagidae (1), Phyllostomidae (1), and Tapiridae (1).

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The habit, shade-tolerance and dispersal agent of 19 bromeliad species were studied in a rainforest community in order to relate specific traits to the spatial occurrence of the species. Highest density was found in riparian forest (RF), followed by restinga scrub (RE), rocky shore (RS) and dense canopy forest (DF). Terrestrial bromeliads occurred in open sites (RE and RS), epiphytes were absent in RS and facultative species occupied all four habitats. Bird-dispersed bromeliads occurred in the upper canopy, whereas those dispersed by mammals were low in the forest profile. Bromeliads which are dispersed by similar fauna fruit sequentially through the year. Differences in traits may allow the sharing of habitats and strata among species.

Aim Species interaction networks are known to vary in structure over large spatial scales. We investigated the hypothesis that environmental factors affect interaction network structure by influencing the functional diversity of ecological communities. Notably, we expect more functionally diverse communities to form interaction networks with a higher degree of niche partitioning. Location: Americas. Time period: Current. Major taxa studied: Hummingbirds and their nectar plants. Methods We used a large dataset comprising 74 quantitative plant–hummingbird interaction networks distributed across the Americas, along with morphological trait data for 158 hummingbird species. First, we used a model selection approach to evaluate associations between the environment (climate, topography and insularity), species richness and hummingbird functional diversity as predictors of network structure (niche partitioning, i.e., complementary specialization and modularity). Second, we used structural equation models (SEMs) to ask whether environmental predictors and species richness affect network structure directly and/or indirectly through their influence on hummingbird functional diversity. For a subset of 28 networks, we additionally evaluated whether plant functional diversity was associated with hummingbird functional diversity and network structure. Results Precipitation, insularity and plant richness, together with hummingbird functional diversity (specifically, functional dispersion), were consistently strong predictors of niche partitioning in plant–hummingbird networks. Moreover, SEMs showed that environmental predictors and plant richness affected network structure both directly and indirectly through their effects on hummingbird functional diversity. Plant functional diversity, however, was unrelated to hummingbird functional diversity and network structure. Main conclusions: We reveal the importance of hummingbird functional diversity for niche partitioning in plant–hummingbird interaction networks. The lack of support for similar effects for plant functional diversity potentially indicates that consumer functional diversity might be more important for structuring interaction networks than resource functional diversity. Changes in pollinator functional diversity are therefore likely to alter the structure of interaction networks and associated ecosystem functions.