Aim The aim of the study was (1) to describe the biodiversity of the sphingid assemblage in a Cerrado area in the Triângulo Mineiro region, south-east of Brazil;(2) to evaluate the seasonal variations in species composition; (3) to compare the faunistic relationships between the Cerrado biome and adjacent ecosystems; and (4) to analyse the biogeographical pattern of species distribution in the Neotropical region in a historical context. Location Panga Ecological Station (PES), 30 km south of the city of Uberlândia, and other areas of the Triângulo Mineiro region, Minas Gerais state, southeastern Brazil.Methods Moth richness and abundance were monitored monthly at the PES . Complementary moth richness and abundance data were also collected in other areas of the Triângulo Mineiro region. All collections were made using light traps, and the hawkmoths were mounted and identified. Cluster analysis, rarefaction curves and estimators of total species richness were used to compare the Cerrado hawkmoth assemblage with assemblages derived from other surveys in the Neotropics. ResultsIn total, 61 hawkmoth species were recorded for the study region and their occurrence was markedly seasonal. The hawkmoth assemblage in the study area presented the closest similarity with rain forest areas and with a tropical dry forest area in Central America. The area shared species with both rain forest and seasonally dry tropical forest (SDTF) ecosystems, including supposedly endemic species previously recorded only in the latter areas. Rarefaction curves and estimators of the total number of species showed species richness to be comparable with other highly diverse forest areas in the Neotropics, such as the Brazilian Amazon and Costa Rica.Main conclusions This short-term study is the first systematic survey of hawkmoths in the Cerrado. It has recorded around 22% of the South American fauna and highlighted the high species richness of the region, which compares favourably with that in other rain forest ecosystems. The survey indicates high regional diversity, and has shown that the Cerrado harbours a hawkmoth fauna comprising both rain forest elements, probably distributed along humid gallery forest corridors, and SDTF elements, supporting the idea of a historical Pleistocene arc connecting the Caatinga domain and other seasonal dry forest areas across the Cerrado region.

Investigation of the effect of endogenous and exogenous factors on the diet of animals is necessary for a better understanding of their feeding habits. This approach can provide relevant information on the autoecology of a species and its ecological interactions. We investigated the composition and intraspecific variation in the diet of the marsupial Gracilinanus agilis in areas of dry woodland forests (i.e., cerradão) in the Cerrado of Central Brazil, taking into consideration the availability of prey (arthropods) in the environment. We found insects, spiders, birds, and fruits in the scats of G. agilis. Insects (orders Hymenoptera, Isoptera, Hemiptera, and Coleoptera) and fruits were the most frequently consumed resources. Males fed more heavily on insects than females did, whereas during the warm-wet season (October to April), the reproductive females fed on insects more than the nonreproductive females did. On the other hand, the consumption of fruits and vertebrates did not vary between seasons, sexes, or according to female reproductive condition. Moreover, reproductive females fed more frequently on ants and beetles than nonreproductive females did. We also detected both positive (for Isoptera and Hemiptera) and negative (for Hymenoptera) selection of insects during the cool-dry season, whereas in the warm-wet season, these resources were consumed according to their availability in the environment. Our study revealed that G. agilis is an insectivore-omnivore species, but fruits also are a relevant part of its diet. This marsupial seemed to select their prey qualitatively according to its energy demands and nutritional requirements.

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Sexual dimorphism is a pronounced pattern of intraspecific variation in Lepidoptera. However, moths of the family Sphingidae (Lepidoptera: Bombycoidea) are considered exceptions to this rule. We used geometric morphometric techniques to detect shape and size sexual dimorphism in the fore and hindwings of seven hawkmoth species. The shape variables produced were then subjected to a discriminant analysis. The allometric effects were measured with a simple regression between the canonical variables and the centroid size. We also used the normalized residuals to assess the nonallometric component of shape variation with a t-test. The deformations in wing shape between sexes per species were assessed with a regression between the nonreduced shape variables and the residuals. We found sexual dimorphism in both wings in all analyzed species, and that the allometric effects were responsible for much of the wing shape variation between the sexes. However, when we removed the size effects, we observed shape sexual dimorphism. It is very common for females to be larger than males in Lepidoptera, so it is expected that the shape of structures such as wings suffers deformations in order to preserve their function. However, sources of variation other than allometry could be a reflection of different reproductive flight behavior (long flights in search for sexual mates in males, and flight in search for host plants in females).

Spatial and temporal variation in networks has been reported in different studies. However, the many effects of habitat structure and food resource availability variation on network structures have remained poorly investigated, especially in individual‐based networks. This approach can shed light on individual specialization of resource use and how habitat variations shape trophic interactions. To test hypotheses related to habitat variability on trophic interactions, we investigated seasonal and spatial variation in network structure of four populations of the marsupial Gracilinanus agilis in the highly seasonal tropical savannas of the Brazilian Cerrado. We evaluated such variation with network nestedness and modularity considering both cool‐dry and warm‐wet seasons, and related such variations with food resource availability and habitat structure (considered in the present study as environmental variation) in four sites of savanna woodland forest. Network analyses showed that modularity (but not nestedness) was consistently lower during the cool‐dry season in all G. agilis populations. Our results indicated that nestedness is related to habitat structure, showing that this metric increases in sites with thick and spaced trees. On the other hand, modularity was positively related to diversity of arthropods and abundance of fruits. We propose that the relationship between nestedness and habitat structure is an outcome of individual variation in the vertical space and food resource use by G. agilis in sites with thick and spaced trees. Moreover, individual specialization in resource‐rich and population‐dense periods possibly increased the network modularity of G. agilis . Therefore, our study reveals that environment variability considering spatial and temporal components is important for shaping network structure of populations.