Resilient fruit-feeding butterfly assemblages across a Caatinga dry forest chronosequence submitted to chronic anthropogenic disturbance

Butterflies of two atlantic forest conservation units from Paraíba state, northeast of Brazil

“…Other studies that reported higher richness were Cardoso (1949) and, more recently, Melo et al (2019), also in forest fragments of the Northern Atlantic Forest. Additionally, the observed and estimated richness was less than 300 species, which is approximately the expected number for well-sampled areas in the Northern Atlantic Forest (Freitas et al 2023). This variation is largely due to the different sampling efforts and methods used in these studies (Table 2).…”

“…and Bezerra et al (2021) (44 spp. ) in urban forest fragments in the Northern Mata Atlântica, but it was lower than that found by Kesselring & Ebert ([1982]) (304 spp., according to Freitas et al 2023). However, it is worth noting that the list from the latter authors is a compilation of more than five years of collections.…”

“…The frugivorous butterfly richness was higher than that found by Melo et al (2019), which recorded 42 species, representing 14.58% of their total richness. Chronic disturbances in the forest, biomass, and richness of arboreal species are excellent predictors of taxonomic and functional changes in frugivorous butterflies, favoring species adapted to disturbances and negatively impacting forest-dependent species (Melo et al 2023).…”

“…According to Francini et al (2011), the highest richness of Hesperiidae and Nymphalidae, followed by Lycaenidae, Riodinidae, Pieridae, and Papilionidae is the expected result for most surveys in the neotropical region. However, when comparing different studies conducted in the Northern Atlantic Forest, there is a variation in the richness pattern by family (see Table 4.1 in Freitas et al 2023). This may be related to the different environmental factors in each study area, as well as the availability of host plants for the immature stages.…”

Scorpion assemblages in threatened Brazilian forests: The role of environmental factors in explaining beta‐diversity patterns

“…This problem becomes more apparent when it comes to terrestrial invertebrates inhabiting tropical forests (Beck & McCain, 2020), even though this group of animals has its highest diversity in the tropics (Basset et al, 2012;Privet & Pétillon, 2020), where they play a key role in ecosystem functioning (Cole et al, 2019;Seifert et al, 2022). The Atlantic Forest and the Caatinga are good examples of tropical habitats, which, despite their high levels of endemicity and diversity (Amorim & Santos, 2020;Carvalho et al, 2022;Fernandes et al, 2020;Hoffmeister & Ferrari, 2016), are known to be poorly represented by ecological and conservation studies focused on terrestrial invertebrates (e.g., Filgueiras et al, 2019;Melo et al, 2023). Both forest types have been historically subjected to different anthropogenic pressures (e.g., Apgaua et al, 2014;Batista et al, 2020;Morante-Filho et al, 2015;Schulz et al, 2019) leading, however, to similar outcomes.…”