Although Brazil is a megadiverse country and thus a conservation priority, no study has yet quantified conservation gaps in the Brazilian protected areas (PAs) using extensive empirical data. Here, we evaluate the degree of biodiversity protection and knowledge within all the Brazilian PAs through a gap analysis of vertebrate, arthropod and angiosperm occurrences and phylogenetic data. Our results show that the knowledge on biodiversity in most Brazilian PAs remain scant as 71% of PAs have less than 0.01 species records per km2. Almost 55% of Brazilian species and about 40% of evolutionary lineages are not found in PAs, while most species have less than 30% of their geographic distribution within PAs. Moreover, the current PA network fails to protect the majority of endemic species. Most importantly, these results are similar for all taxonomic groups analysed here. The methods and results of our countrywide assessment are suggested to help design further inventories in order to map and secure the key biodiversity of the Brazilian PAs. In addition, our study illustrates the most common biodiversity knowledge shortfalls in the tropics.

Aim The knowledge of biodiversity facets such as species composition, distribution and ecological niche is fundamental for the construction of biogeographic hypotheses and conservation strategies. However, the knowledge on these facets is affected by major shortfalls, which are even more pronounced in the tropics. This study aims to evaluate the effect of sampling bias and variation in collection effort on Linnean, Wallacean and Hutchinsonian shortfalls and diversity measures as species richness, endemism and beta-diversity. Location Brazil.Methods We have built a database with over 1.5 million records of arthropods, vertebrates and angiosperms of Brazil, based on specimens deposited in scientific collections and on the taxonomic literature. We used null models to test the collection bias regarding the proximity to access routes. We also tested the influence of sampling effort on diversity measures by regression models. To investigate the Wallacean shortfall, we modelled the geographic distribution of over 4000 species and compared their observed distribution with models. To quantify the Hutchinsonian shortfall, we used environmental Euclidean distance of the records to identify regions with poorly sampled environmental conditions. To estimate the Linnean shortfall, we measured the similarity of species composition between regions close to and far from access routes. Results We demonstrated that despite the differences in sampling effort, the strong collection bias affects all taxonomic groups equally, generating a pattern of spatially biased sampling effort. This collection pattern contributes greatly to the biodiversity knowledge shortfalls, which directly affects the knowledge on the distribution patterns of diversity.Main conclusions The knowledge on species richness, species composition and endemism in the Brazilian biodiversity is strongly biased spatially. Despite differences in sampling effort for each taxonomic group, roadside bias affected them equally. Species composition similarity decreased with the distance from access routes, suggesting collection surveys at sites far from roads could increase the probability of sampling new geographic records or new species.

Larvae of Utetheisa ornatrix (L.)(Lepidoptera: Arctiidae) are found mainly inside unripe pods of several alkaloid-bearing Crotalaria (Fabaceae) species. Although eggs are laid on the leaves, the larvae are usually found feeding on unripe seeds in the pods. In this work, we investigated the selective pressures that could explain why U. ornatrix larvae feed primarily on unripe pods with seeds and not on leaves. Our results showed that larval survivorship in the laboratory was unaffected by feeding on leaves or unripe seeds, and that larval development up to the pupal stage was better in larvae that fed on unripe seeds, although perforating unripe pods to reach seeds was costly in terms of survivorship. Females were also heavier when fed on unripe seeds, but there was no significant difference in the fecundity of females fed either of the two diets. Feeding on unripe seeds in pods had other benefits for U. ornatrix , including a lower predation rate for larvae that fed inside compared to larvae that fed outside the pods. Similarly, adults derived from larvae that fed on unripe seeds were preyed upon less frequently by the orb-weaving spider Nephila clavipes than were adults that fed on leaves. The latter benefit may be closely related to the high concentration of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in unripe seeds, which is about five times more than in leaves. These alkaloids are sequestered by the larvae and transferred to adults, which then become chemically protected. However, this chemical defence does not protect the larvae against ants such as Ectatomma quadridens and Camponotus crassus . Pods with unripe seeds that confer physical protection to larvae and pyrrolizidine alkaloids that confer chemical protection to adults limit the use of leaves by U. ornatrix larvae.

Climate change leads to species' range shifts, which may end up reducing the effectiveness of protected areas. These deleterious changes in biodiversity may become amplified if they include functionally important species, such as herbivores or pollinators. We evaluated how effective protected areas in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest are in maintaining the diversity of tiger moths (Arctiinae) under climate change. Specifically, we assessed whether protected areas will gain or lose species under climate change and mapped their locations in the Atlantic Forest, in order to assess potential spatial patterns of protected areas that will gain or lose species richness. Comparisons were completed using modeled species occurrence data based on the current and projected climate in 2080. We also built a null model for random allocation of protected areas to identify where reductions in species richness will be more severe than expected. We employed several modern techniques for modeling species' distributions and summarized results using ensembles of models. Our models indicate areas of high species richness in the central and southern regions of the Atlantic Forest both for now and the future. However, we estimate that in 2080 these regions should become climatically unsuitable, decreasing the species' distribution area. Around 4% of species were predicted to become extinct, some of them being endemic to the biome. Estimates of species turnover from current to future climate tended to be high, but these findings are dependent on modeling methods. Our most important results show that only a few protected areas in the southern region of the biome would gain species. Protected areas in semideciduous forests in the western region of the biome would lose more species than expected by the null model employed. Hence, current protected areas are worse off, than just randomly selected areas, at protecting species in the future.

ABSTRACT. Externai rnorphology of the irnrnature stages of neotropical heliconians. IH. Heliconills erato phyllis (Fabricius) (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae, Heliconiinae). The externai features of egg. larva and pupa of Heliconius erato phyllis (Fabricius, 1775) are described and illustrated, based upon light and scanning electron microscopy. KEY WORDS. Lepidoptera, Heliconiini , Nymphalidae, immalure stages, morphology He/iconius Kluk, 1802 (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) é um dos gêneros mais conspícuos e co nhecidos de borbo letas neotropicais (DEVRIES 1987). Heliconius erato (Li nnaeus , 1758) é considerada a espéc ie mai s vari ável do gênero, sendo reconhec id as, até o presente, 29 subespéc ies (HOLZINGER & HOLZINGER 1994). Segund o os mesmos autores, He/iconius erato phyllis (Fabricius, 1775) apresenta ampla distribuição na América do Su l, ond e ocorre desde o nord es te até o sul do Brasil , Bolívia, nordeste da Argentina e Uruguai.Heliconius erato é comumente encontrada em ambi entes enso larados, sendo freqüente em florestas abertas ou perturbadas, bem como clareiras em florestas den sas (BROWN 1992). Os adultos possuem comportamento semigregá-rio , fo rmand o agrupamen tos noturnos chamados de "dormi tórios " que reúnem de 2 a 145 indi víduos (CRANE 1957; TURNER 1971;MALLET 1986 ; R. DiMare, UFRGS , dados não pub li cados) . O ovo é depositado na região apical dos ramos de várias espécies de Passiflora Linnaeus, preferencialmente do sub gê nero Plectostemma Masters. A larva é so litária e apresenta tendência ao canibali smo (B ROWN & MIELKE 1972; BENSON et ai. 1976). As espécies de Heliconius , dev ido à fác il adaptação às cond ições de insetário e cu lti vo de suas plantas hospedeiras, têm si do utili zadas como modelos experim enta is em diversos es tudos so bre interação in seto-planta