Scale-dependence of the correlation between human population and the species richness of stream macro-invertebrates

Insularization drives physiological condition of Amazonian dung beetles

The fragmentation and degradation of otherwise continuous natural landscapes pose serious threats to the health of animal populations, consequently impairing their fitness and survival. While most fragmentation ecology studies focus on habitat remnants embedded withinn terrestrial matrices, the effects of true insularization remains poorly understood. Land-bridge islands created by major dams leads to habitat loss and fragmentation, negatively affecting terrestrial biodiversity. To assess the effects of insularization, we conducted a study on the key aspects of dung beetle physiological condition and body size throughout the Balbina Hydroelectric Reservoir located in the Central Amazon. We assessed these traits at the population and assemblage levels, collecting dung beetles from both forest islands and continuous forest areas while analyzing various landscape variables. We show that landscapes with higher forest cover positively affected dung beetle body size. Interestingly, dung beetle responses to insularization were species-dependent; larger islands tended to host larger individuals of Deltochilum aspericole, while in Canthon triangularis, smaller islands showed larger body sizes. However, individuals from the mainland were larger than those from the islands. Moreover, the proportion of closed-canopy forest in the landscapes also impacted physiological attributes. It negatively affected the body size of Deltochilum aspericole and the lipid mass of Dichotomius boreus, but positively affected the lipid mass of Canthon triangularis. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how habitat fragmentation in aquatic matrices affects the size structure and physiology of insect assemblages. This is essential in formulating effective conservation strategies for preserving biodiversity loss in tropical forest regions and mitigating the consequences of hydropower infrastructure.

Sublethal dose of deltamethrin damage the midgut cells of the mayfly Callibaetis radiatus (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae)

In insects, the midgut performs multiple physiologic functions (e.g., digestion and nutrients absorption) and serves as a physical/chemical barrier against pathogens and chemical stressors such as deltamethrin, a pyrethroid insecticide, commonly used in insect control that are agricultural pests and human disease vectors. Here, we described the midgut cell ultrastructure of Callibaetis radiatus nymphs, which are bioindicators of water quality and the ultrastructural alterations in midgut under sublethal exposure to deltamethrin at three different periods (1, 12, 24 h). The digestive cells of deltamethrin-unexposed nymphs had long microvilli, many mitochondria in the apical cytoplasm, a rough endoplasmic reticulum, a basal labyrinth with openings for hemocele, and the midgut peritrophic matrix which is classified as type I. Nymphs exposed to deltamethrin exhibited digestive cells rich in autophagic vacuoles, basal labyrinth loss, and microvilli disorganization since the first hour of contact with deltamethrin. However, these midgut tissues underwent to autophagic cellular recovery along the 24 h of exposure to deltamethrin. Thus, the sublethal exposure to deltamethrin is sufficient to disturb the ultrastructure of C. radiatus midgut, which might reduce the abilities of these insects to survive in aquatic environments contaminated by pyrethroids.

Revealing patterns of local species richness along environmental gradients with a novel network tool

How species richness relates to environmental gradients at large extents is commonly investigated aggregating local site data to coarser grains. However, such relationships often change with the grain of analysis, potentially hiding the local signal. Here we show that a novel network technique, the “method of reflections”, could unveil the relationships between species richness and climate without such drawbacks. We introduced a new index related to potential species richness, which revealed large scale patterns by including at the local community level information about species distribution throughout the dataset (i.e., the network). The method effectively removed noise, identifying how far site richness was from potential. When applying it to study woody species richness patterns in Spain, we observed that annual precipitation and mean annual temperature explained large parts of the variance of the newly defined species richness, highlighting that, at the local scale, communities in drier and warmer areas were potentially the species richest. Our method went far beyond what geographical upscaling of the data could unfold, and the insights obtained strongly suggested that it is a powerful instrument to detect key factors underlying species richness patterns, and that it could have numerous applications in ecology and other fields.