Introduction: Diet and temporal specialists, especially those in tropical seasonal environments, require synchronous phenology with hosts. Species with life-history-traits that covary with temporal specialization may be particularly vulnerable to climate-driven changes in phenology. In the Cerrado, larger fruit-feeding butter ies species tend to be less abundant and more seasonal than their smallerbodied relatives. It is important to consider how ecological process and phylogenetic history are associated with these attributes.Aim/Methods: Here we evaluated the effects of climate and body size on the seasonality of abundance of fruit-feeding butter ies as well as their association with natural history traits including diet breadth and synchrony with fruits.Results: The distribution of abundances of these butter ies species was not uniform throughout the year, was associated with body size and shaped by habitat type and climate. Overall, hot and wet months were associated with higher abundance and species richness of these nymphalids in the Cerrado. Lineages of large-bodied species were less abundant, more seasonal and more generalized in larval diet breadth. In addition, these large-bodied clades were more tightly synchronized with fruit phenology. Discussion: Our ndings support the hypothesis that large and less abundant species to occur in a narrow temporal window and synchronized with fruit phenology.Implications for insect conservation: Particular attention should be given for the conservation of largerbodied temporal specialist species as they are vulnerable to phenology mismatching as a result of rapid global warming, but they will also face additional pressures with the advancing deforestation in the Cerrado.
1. The Cerrado biome is a biodiversity hotspot with a rich biota, and intense anthropogenic pressures. Despite its importance, it is still poorly understood how insects occupy different spatial dimensions of the landscape.2. We investigated how the beta diversity of plants influences the beta diversity of nymphalids at the regional-scale (gallery forest vs. savannah) and local-scale (transects). We expected greater beta-diversity in nymphalid assemblages in gallery forests given the heterogeneity of plants and canopy structure.3. We sampled nymphalids in each habitat monthly for 1 year and observed 3459 individuals from 62 species. Nymphalidae abundance was significantly higher in the understory than in the canopy. Specifically, only 18% of the individuals were captured in the canopy of gallery forests compared to 11% in savannah canopies. Species richness was higher in gallery forests (55 species) compared to savannahs (34 species).4. Savannah transects were very similar in plant species composition and butterfly assemblages within the understory and canopy, whereas the species composition of plants and butterflies in gallery forests was highly heterogeneous which is consistent with the habitat heterogeneity hypothesis.5. Gallery forests are spatially more complex, which probably results in higher niche availability that may contribute to reduce the community saturation and help to maintain greater beta diversity in these habitats.
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