Richness of tiger moths (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae) in the Brazilian Cerrado: how much do we know?

Abstract

The Cerrado biome is located in the central region of Brazil and consists mainly of savanna vegetation. In this study we assessed the richness of tiger moths (Arctiidae) of the Brazilian Cerrado. Specifically, we 1) assessed species richness in one-degree cells in the biome, 2) identified areas where these moths are poorly known, and 3) tested if similarities in species composition are related to geographical distance in the relatively well-sampled areas. We obtained the data mainly from specimens deposited in museums, but we also included additional information from the literature. We compiled 2,321 records belonging to 723 species. Specimens were recorded in 108 localities distributed in 67 one-degree cells. Species occurring exclusively in one or two one-degree cells represented 64% of the total number of species. Sample effort was not uniform in the biome, as there were very few records in the northern region of the Cerrado. The best-sampled one-degree cell had 239 species. Species assemblages were structured in space with a clear trend of localities near one another presenting more similarities in faunal composition than distant localities. This distance decay in similarity was slightly more pronounced along the longitudinal than along the latitudinal distances. We conclude that the Cerrado still remains poorly inventoried for tiger moths, particularly in its northern portion, where many unrecorded species may be found in the future. Despite of this limited knowledge, the best-sampled region indicates that richness of tiger moths in the Cerrado is comparable to the species-rich forest biomes in the Neotropical region

Pesticide use and biodiversity conservation in the Amazonian agricultural frontier

“…However, pesticides are compounds deliberately designed to negatively impact organismal survival, development, growth and reproduction, and as such can adversely affect a broad range of non-target species. There are not only many non-pest species phylogenetically related to pest species (for example, in the same family of the important soya bean pest, the velvet bean caterpillar moth Anticarsia gemmatalis, there are 723 species of moths in the cerrados [17]) but also many pesticides act upon basal physiological processes (e.g. mitotic spindle formation, membrane ion channel transport, mitochondrial electron transport, neurotransmitter and ATP formation [16]), which are common to a wide array of largely unrelated, non-target organisms.…”

Land-Use and Land-Cover Mapping of the Brazilian Cerrado Based Mainly on Landsat-8 Satellite Images

“…At the same time, this region presents high biodiversity, with many endemic plant species (RIBEIRO et al, 2011). The idea that the Cerrado has poor faunal diversity is a misinterpretation, mostly due to the lack of a good registration system (FERRO et al, 2010).…”

Lista anotada de los Euchromiina “polillas avispas” (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae: Arctiini) del departamento de Loreto (Perú), con el reporte de nuevos registros y sinónimos

“…Investigaciones sobre Euchromiinae en Loreto no se han llevado a cabo; sin embargo, en el Perú se cuenta con las llevadas a cabo en Tambopata, donde se registró 72 especies (Grados 1999), para el bajo río Urubamba 91 especies (Grados 2001) y para dos lugares en el Parque Nacional Bahuaja-Sonene con 50 especies (Grados et al 2015). Para otros lugares de la región Neotropical, se pueden mencionar para el Estado de Veracruz (México), donde se registró 66 especies (Hernádez-Baz & Grados 2004); en Brasil, para la ecorregión El Cerrado se reportó la ocurrencia de 76 especies (Ferro et al 2010); por último, se tiene el reporte de 219 especies, basados en la literatura y colecciones de Brasil, para toda la Amazonía Brasilera (Teston & Gianluppi 2019).…”