Elevational Ranges and Local Extinction Risk of Beetles Occurring in the “Campos De Altitude” in Southeastern Brazil

Abstract

The mountaintops of the Atlantic Rainforest in Southeastern Brazil are dominated by high altitude grasslands, named Campos de Altitude (CA). Considering the location and the smaller habitat areas of communities on the mountaintops and the high frequency of endemic species, the assemblages in these habitats are particularly threatened by climate change, and the vulnerability of a species should then be higher if its elevational range is narrow. In this study we aim to describe the elevational range of beetle species occurring in the CA and discuss their vulnerability to local extinction in the context of climate change, also considering their trophic group. We selected beetles in five taxa from three trophic groups in the CA of Serra dos Órgãos National Park (SONP) and Itatiaia National Park (INP): detritivores (Scarabaeidae-INP), herbivores (Chrysomelidae-SONP and INP, and Curculionidae-SONP) and predators (Coccinellidae-SONP, and Lampyridae-SONP). We found different elevational ranges among the studied taxa and among species within each taxon. Herbivores tended to have narrower ranges than the detritivores, and predators were the trophic group with the broadest species range. The relatively high frequency of species with narrow elevational range, particularly within the herbivores, suggests that this entomofauna is particularly endangered due to predicted climate warming and an expected range shift upwards. Considering that many endemic species are expected in the CA and that many undescribed species of insects have been found in this habitat, we may lose many yet unknown species.

Elevation and temporal distributions of Chrysomelidae in southeast Brazil with emphasis on the Galerucinae

“…Moreover, there are other threats that make this habitat especially vulnerable, such as fire and burning, extraction of attractive species of the flora, hunting, and invasive species. It is really urgent to study species biology and their elevation ranges, so that we can predict how organisms alter their distribution and adapt to environmental changes ( Maveety et al 2011 ) and plan conservation strategies to protect this unique biota, as suggested by Macedo et al (in press) .…”

Chrysomelinae species (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae) and new biological data from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

“…However, Chrysomelinae is known to be very species-rich in Brazil, including known en demic species, such as Elythrosphaera lahtivirtai ( Macedo et al 1998 ). Because of their high host specificity ( Jolivet 1988 , Jolivet and Hawkeswood 1995 ) and low dispersal ability ( Freijeiro and Baselga 2016 ) the chrysomelines are expected to have many narrowly distributed species, especially in mountainous areas, as has already been found for other tropical Chrysomelidae species ( García-Robledo et al 2016 , Macedo et al 2016 ). These traits then would make these Brazil species especially vulnerable to extinction as the mountains within the Atlantic forest biome are largely degraded and threatened ( Martinelli 2007 ).…”

Insect elevational specialization in a tropical biodiversity hotspot

“…Our finding that a higher proportion of species is confined to high elevational zones in this study from Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest (up to 58% as opposed to the~20% found generally in invertebrates) suggests that previous general figures may underestimate the risk to many tropical insects, especially those in rich zones of endemism. The Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest is known to contain many endemic species that account for a high proportion of richness (Safford, 1999;Ribeiro et al, 2009), including many in the Campos de Altitude (Macedo et al, 2016). It is important therefore to establish if this is also true of insects in other tropical zones of endemism.…”