Distribution patterns of riodinid butterflies (Lepidoptera: Riodinidae) from southern Brazil

Abstract

Background: The aim of this study was to synthesize the knowledge of Riodinidae butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) in Rio Grande do Sul state (RS), southern Brazil, evaluating the role of climatic, topographic, and vegetational variables on the observed patterns of occurrence and distribution of these butterflies in the Pampa and Atlantic Forest biomes. The records of riodinid butterflies in RS were collected from published studies and the examination of museum collections in Brazil. Results: A total of 97 taxa of Riodinidae were recorded, distributed in 92 municipalities. The NMDS analysis and the Constrained Analysis of Principal Coordinates grouped the municipalities according to the phytogeographic regions and biomes -Pampa and Atlantic Forest domains -in which the species records were made. Distance from the ocean, precipitation and temperature were the environmental variables which most contributed to explain the distribution patterns of these butterflies. The multivariate Mantel correlogram suggests that over short distances, the composition of species shows significant levels of spatial autocorrelation, and as geographic distance increases, these levels tend to present negative values. Conclusions:The results suggest that the observed distribution pattern of Riodinidae in the different biomes and phytogeographic regions in the extreme southern Brazil could be explained by climatic, environmental variables and geographic distance.

Diversity of Odonata (Insecta) in Seasonal Deciduous Forest fragments in southern Brazil (state of Rio Grande do Sul), with a new record for the state and comments on the seasonal distribution of the species

“…Furthermore, landscape structure features such as vegetation types are an important regional driver of the spatial distribution of Odonata (Paulson 2006, Kadoya et al 2008. Phytoecological regions were found to play an important role in structuring the composition of many insect groups in RS (Ferro & Teston 2009, Siewert et al 2014, and a recent study carried out in RS showed that the composition of Odonata largely changed among different vegetation types in the Pampa biome (Renner et al 2019). However, no assessment of the differences in the composition of Odonata among the vegetation types of the Atlantic Forest biome in RS has been conducted yet.…”

Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) of grassland areas in the Pampa biome, southern Brazil

“…Euselasia satyroides Lathy, 1926 is a recently taxonomically reviewed species ) that was referred to as E. eugeon (Giovenardi et al 2013) and Euselasia sp. (Siewert et al 2014 andLemes et al 2015), and thus our report of this species is not a new record. The Lycaenidae Zizula cyna (W. H. Edwards, 1881) is a small butterfly also recorded for the first time in this region.…”

“…The vouchers are deposited Carvalho et al | Grassland butterflies in the Pampa biome, southern Brazil their richness might have been undersampled in the field sites. In contrast, the low richness of Lycaenidae and Riodinidae could be related to the gregarious behavior of some species of these families and reduced active period of the adults, resulting in either rareness or abundance in the field (DeVries 1997; Brown and Freitas 1999;Siewert et al 2014).…”

Changes in Species Richness and Composition of Tiger Moths (Lepidoptera: Erebidae: Arctiinae) among Three Neotropical Ecoregions

“…In spite of there being some exceptions [ 58 ], diversity studies of Lepidoptera in Neotropical South America often report richness decreases with increasing latitude [ 1 , 57 , 59 – 61 ]. One explanation for this pattern is that at higher latitudes climate becomes more important in constraining the distributions of species, especially for ectothermic animals [ 26 , 57 , 62 , 63 ].…”