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.

ABSTRACT. Amphibian diversity of Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil. Amphibian species from Mato Grosso do Sul state were compiled and checked for the fi rst time. A total of 97 species were recorded, representing more than 10% of the known Brazilian amphibians. Twenty fi ve anuran genera in nine families and only one caecilian were recorded. Cerrado was the richest area followed by semideciduous forests, Chaco, and veredas (palm swamps). It was recorded 56 species in fl oodplain areas and 92 in the surrounding cerrados. The Serra da Bodoquena National Park and some Pantanal areas were better sampled than other regions in Mato Grosso do Sul, resulting in sampling gaps across the state. Important areas for future inventories were identifi ed: mountainous regions in Serra de Maracaju and those bordering the Apa river, Brazilian chacoan areas, the Taquari river alluvial fan, the broad Taquari-Itiquira fl at area, the Central Plateau scarps, wet areas from Parana river bordering São Paulo state, and inland areas from Pantanal.KEYWORDS. Amphibia, inventories, biodiversity, Biota-MS Program.RESUMO. A fauna de anfíbios do estado de Mato Grosso do Sul foi compilada e elaborada pela primeira vez, totalizando 97 espécies, o que representa pouco mais de 10% das espécies que ocorrem no Brasil. Nove famílias e 25 gêneros de Anura e apenas uma espécie de Gymnophiona foram registradas. As áreas de Cerrado apresentaram a maior riqueza, seguidas pelas fl orestas estacionais semideciduais, Chaco e veredas. Em relação às macrorregiões consideradas, foram registradas 56 espécies para a planície de inundação (majoritariamente representada pelo Pantanal) e 92 para o planalto. As regiões mais amostradas em Mato Grosso do Sul são o Parque Nacional da Serra da Bodoquena e algumas áreas do Pantanal, o que resulta em lacunas de amostragens por todo o estado, principalmente nas regiões norte, leste/sudeste e parte do oeste/sudoeste. Foram identifi cadas áreas consideradas importantes para amostragens em decorrência da complexidade de fi tofi sionomias e relevos encontrados no estado: Maciço do rio Apa, Serra de Maracaju, grande parte do Chaco brasileiro, leque do rio Taquari, planalto do Taquari-Itiquira, escarpas do planalto Central, áreas úmidas/fl orestas estacionais da planície do rio Paraná e áreas interioranas do Pantanal, onde o acesso é difícil.

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Forty-three specimens of Leptodactylus podicipinus (Anura: Leptodactylidae) were collected in the south-eastern Pantanal, municipality of Corumbá, State of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil in February and July 2007, and examined for endoparasites. Forty (93%) specimens were infected with at least one helminth species. The predominant parasites were nematodes (Aplectana sp., Cosmocerca podicipinus, Oswaldocruzia lopesi, Physalopteroides venancioi, Rhabdias sp.), but the trematode Catadiscus propinquus also showed high prevalence. The trematodes Infidum infidum and Travtrema stenocotyle were also found, but in only one specimen. Adult frogs showed higher parasite diversity than subadults. Leptodactylus podicipinus was preferentially infected by direct life-cycle parasites and was reported as a new host record for seven helminth species.

taxonomically and thus, also tend to share physiological and behavioural traits (see Menin et al., 2005). Therefore, a clear understanding of the relationship on niche overlap, similarity and competition among species is necessary to answer questions on community structure (Lawlor, 1980). IntroductionSyntopic related species are expected to be exposed to a similar array of potential prey, especially if they share activity period, body size and microhabitat features (e.g. Pianka, 1986;Sluys and Rocha, 1998; Guimarães and Bastos, 2003). This may result in considerable overlap of prey consumption, especially if they are closely related AbstractWe studied the feeding ecology of two Hylinae anurans (Hypsiboas raniceps and Scinax acuminatus), living sympatrically and syntopically in the Pantanal of Miranda, Mato Grosso do Sul State, Brazil. The two hylid species had similar relative mouth width but differed in body size. The diet of the two frog species were composed of arthropodan prey. Both species consumed 11 different prey types, of which seven were common among them. Hypsiboas raniceps had a larger niche breadth (B A = 0.64) than S. acuminatus (B A = 0.48). Trophic niche overlap among frog species was 60.7 %. Our data are suggestive that although for many anurans the diet simply tend to reflect prey availability in the microhabitat, these two frog species, despite sharing similar microhabitat and period of activity (thus potentially exposed to a similar array of preys), tends to differ somewhat in diet (about 40%) which may result from some intrinsic ecological aspects to each of them (e.g. ecophysiology) and/or differences in body size.

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A riqueza e intensidade de vocalizações de anuros em uma área urbana de Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil, foram estudadas de fevereiro de 2002 a Janeiro de 2003 em uma poça temporária. Foi utilizado um transecto com quatro pontos de escuta onde foram consideradas as espécies visualizadas e a intensidade das respectivas vocalizações. Foram registradas 16 espécies de quatro famílias: Bufonidae (2), Hylidae (7), Microhylidae (1) e Leptodactylidae (6). O período reprodutivo dessas espécies esteve correlacionado com a estação chuvosa, de dezembro a março (r² = 0,806, F(1,10) = 41,530 p = 0,002, n = 12). As espécies que apresentaram maior intensidade de vocalização foram Scinax nasicus (Cope, 1862) e Physalaemus albonotatus (Steindachner, 1864), com picos em janeiro. A espécie que apresentou maior período de vocalização foi Leptodactylus fuscus, de setembro a fevereiro. O maior número de espécies e de indivíduos vocalizando ocorreu de 19:00 às 23:00 h.

The distributional data of mammalian fauna are important to reach a comprehensive overview of biogeographic patterns and to highlight regional conservation status, especially in a poorly known region such as the Chiquitano dry forest in western Brazil. Our aims were to survey the mammal species occurring in the Urucum Mountains, located in the southeast end of the Chiquitano forest, compare its species composition to areas elsewhere in different ecoregions, and discuss their conservation statuses. Small mammals were sampled using pitfall and live traps, and medium and large mammals were sampled by direct observation, indirect evidence (e.g. faeces and tracks), and camera traps. Patterns of species composition were compared to other surrounding areas of different ecoregions in South America using multivariate analyses. The results indicated that both faunas have similar biogeographical influences. The Urucum Mountains have an influence on the faunas from the Cerrado, Chaco and Pantanal ecoregions, and only secondarily from forested ecoregions (e.g. Amazon forest). The Urucum harbours a rich non-volant mammalian fauna with species that are widely and restrictedly distributed. The conservation of Urucum Mountains is important because these mountains harbour threatened plant, invertebrate, and vertebrate (mammals) species, which could be suffering due to the mining activity carried out in the region. We stress that the Chiquitano dry forest is unique to western Brazil, situated in a complex biogeographical region, and harbouring a rich and diversified mammal fauna.