The construction of roads and other large-scale infrastructure projects, and the secondary impacts they precipitate, are among the key drivers of change in tropical forests. The proposed expansion of a road in the buffer zones of Peru's Manu National Park and Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, in the country's Amazon region, threatens biodiversity and indigenous communities in one of the world's most species-rich and environmentally sensitive rainforest areas. In particular, road expansion is likely to result in uncontrolled colonization, deforestation, and the illicit extraction of timber and other natural resources, as well as an increase in social conflict between resource extractors and indigenous communities. Furthermore, the development of infrastructure in the Manu region puts at risk Peru's international commitments regarding climate change by promoting, rather than avoiding, forest loss. A number of viable alternatives to further road expansion are available to achieve economic development and improved mobility in Manu, including agricultural intensification, improved land-use planning, and a less invasive transportation infrastructure. Given the growth in the global road network expected in the coming decades, as well as the common factors underlying the expansion of such infrastructure across tropical, developing countries, the issues surrounding road expansion in Manu and the compromise solutions that we propose are broadly applicable to efforts to achieve sustainable development in other remote, tropical regions.

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We here document the immature stages of three euptychiine butterflies, Nhambikuara mima (Butler, 1867), Splendeuptychia furina (Hewitson, 1862), and Paryphthimoides brixius (Godart, [1824]), all found feeding on a species of herbaceous bamboo, Taquara micrantha (Kunth) I.L.C.Oliveira & R.P.Oliveira (Poaceae: Bambusoideae: Olyreae) in Madre de Dios, Peru. This study is the first to report the life history of these three taxa with their natural host plant. We provide illustrations of immatures, head capsules, and the host plant for each of these three species. The immature morphology of these taxa supports recent generic arrangements of these three species in comparison with their close relatives, namely Splendeuptychia furina to Nhambikuara mima and Paryphthimoides brixius to Paryphthimoides terrestris (Butler, 1867), a species documented in our successive study. Thus, the present study includes taxonomic implications based on immature stages by discovering putative synapomorphic characters of larvae and pupae. These pairs of closely related species occur in micro-sympatry at the study site in southeastern Peru, and our observations possibly suggest niche partitioning between sibling species. Additionally, we report two herbaceous bamboo species, Olyra latifolia L. and Taquara micrantha (Kunth) I.L.C.Oliveira & R.P.Oliveira as the first known natural host plants for Magneuptychia harpyia (C. Felder & R. Felder, 1867).