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Aim Anthropogenic changes in land use may have major consequences for global biodiversity. However, species diversity is determined by a suite of factors that may affect species differently at different spatial scales. We tested the combined effects of land use and spatial scale on a, b and c diversity in the tropics using experimental communities of cavity-nesting bees and wasps (Hymenoptera: Aculeata). We aimed to determine whether: (1) land-use intensity negatively affects species richness of cavity-nesting Hymenoptera, (2) b diversity, both within and between plots, is higher in more natural systems, (3) species richness of flowering herbs correlates positively with species richness of Hymenoptera within and across habitats, (4) richness of cavity-nesting Hymenoptera in highly modified habitats declines with increasing distance from natural or semi-natural habitats, (5) the effects of land use, herb diversity and forest distance on Hymenoptera a and b diversity vary at different spatial scales, and (6) bees and wasps respond to land use in a similar way.Location Manabi, south-west Ecuador.Methods We examined diversity (species richness) within 48 plots of five habitat types that comprised a gradient of decreasing agricultural intensity from rice and pasture to coffee agroforests, unmanaged abandoned agroforests and forest fragments, using standardized nesting resources for reproducing communities of cavity-nesting bees and wasps. Results(1) Land use significantly affected a diversity of trap-nesting bees and wasps at the subplot (per trap) scale, but not subplot b diversity or plot-scale species richness (c diversity). (2) Beta diversity was surprisingly higher between plots within a land-use type than between land-use types. (3) Species richness of bees and wasps increased with diversity of flowering herbs at the subplot (trap) scale only. (4) Forest distance correlated positively with bee species richness at the plot scale only. (5) Land use, herb diversity and forest distance each showed significant correlations with bee and wasp diversity at only one spatial scale. (6) Despite differences in life history, bees and wasps responded to land-use intensity in a similar way. Main conclusionsThe effects of land use on species richness were highly dependent on spatial scale. Subplot-scale analyses showed that rice and pasture contained the highest species diversity, whereas plot-scale analyses showed no significant difference in the diversity of different land-use types. We emphasize caution in the estimation of biodiversity at only one spatial scale, and highlight the surprisingly large contribution of managed land to the regional biodiversity of these species.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has spread worldwide since the outbreak in Wuhan (China) in December 2019, currently infecting over 25 million people and causing more than 800.000 deaths. In Ecuador, up to the 30th of August 2020, overall 113.648 confirmed cases and 6.555 deaths have been declared. Besides overloading of hospital, capacity for molecular diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 by the Ministry of Public Health was quickly overwhelmed. In this context, emergency authorization for SARS-CoV-2 RT-qPCR diagnosis was granted to other institutions, like the “Agencia de Regulación y Control para la Bioseguridad y Cuarentena de Galápagos” (ABG), that implemented “LabGal” with support of One Health Research Group from “Universidad de Las Américas” (UDLA). The previous experience of ABG and the One Health Research Group in conducting massive surveillance of zoonotic diseases on livestock was crucial to the success on the control of COVID-19 outbreak at Galapagos Islands by the end of May 2020, when Latin American countries were leading the spread of the pandemic.