Opiliofauna (ARACHNIDA: OPILIONES) of the Atlantic Forest in the state of Paraná, Brazil

Abstract

Opiliones are arachnids that provide different services in terrestrial ecosystems, especially in tropical forests, which justifies inventory studies to better understand the occurrence and distribution of these arthropods in Brazil, since little is known about the harvestmen fauna in Conservation Units such as in the state of Paraná. In this context, the objective of the present study was to survey the harvestmen fauna at the Iguaçu National Park (PARNA) and in the Bela Vista Biological Refuge (BVBR), from September 2021 to May 2022, using a sampling effort of 40 hours in the BVBR, and 66 hours at the PARNA Iguaçu. Ten species/morphospecies were recorded, highlighting a new occurrence for Brazil, the species Opisthoplatus vegetus. The present study reduces the information gap about Opiliones in the state, which reaffirms the importance of Conservation Units for the protection of the biota in the state of Paraná.

Harvestmen (Arachnida: Opiliones) from the Atlantic Forest of the Fernão Dias Environmental Protection Area, southern Minas Gerais, Brazil

“…The harvestmen richness found in our study is significant when compared to other studies conducted in areas of Atlantic Forest within the interior of the country, where seasonal semi-deciduous forest predominates (Oliveira Filho 2006). In these regions, the number of species varies from seven to 17 per locality (Ferreira et al 2019(Ferreira et al , 2020Gomes et al 2021;Rubim et al 2023). The explanation for the high richness in this study may result from two associated factors: first, the high humidity in the high-altitude forest within the Serra da Mantiqueira, which reaches over 1600 meters (Melo and Salino 2007), decreasing the risk of death due to body dehydration (Curtis and Machado 2007); second, the degree of conservation of the higher fragments in the municipality, as shown in different studies (Stefani-Santos et al 2021;Vieira et al 2022), which increases the richness and abundance of harvestmen, as demonstrated in the studies of Bragagnolo et al (2007) (Giltay, 1928).…”

“…Harvestmen (Arachnida) have over a thousand species recorded in Brazil, with around 600 occurring in the Atlantic Forest (Kury 2023), making the Atlantic Forest the world's richest area for the occurrence of harvestmen. However, despite the increasing number of inventory studies in this biome (for example, Bragagnolo and Pinto-da-Rocha 2003;Resende et al 2012a, b;Nogueira et al 2019;Ferreira et al 2019Ferreira et al , 2020Costa et al 2020;Rubim et al 2023), there are locations, including Conservation Units (UC), that lack information about the composition of these arachnid communities, such as the Fernão Dias Environmental Protection Area (Fernão Dias EPA, from now on) in the Serra da Mantiqueira, Minas Gerais.…”