We investigated the long-term synergistic effects of climatic components (seasonality, trend and residual) and different fire regimes on survival, capture, recapture and body size (as an indicator of age structure) of the lizard Copeoglossum nigropunctatum in the Cerrado of Central Brazil. We used data from 22 years of capture-mark-recapture from seven study areas with a gradient of burning regimes: five in the Cerrado sensu stricto and two in gallery forest. We hypothesize that there is synergy between climatic components and different fire regimes affecting body size, capture frequency, recapture rate and survival rate of C. nigropunctatum. Our results partially supported our hypotheses. We found that body size is not affected by synergy, but smaller individuals were found in the forest area not subject to burning, showing a greater presence of young individuals in this area. Furthermore, the age structure responds to precipitation seasonality patterns. We also found that the synergy between residual precipitation and fire regimes was negatively associated with capture frequency, with lower capture rates in areas with more severe fire regimes, indicating an effect of synergy on the movement of individuals. We also found that the synergy between precipitation seasonality and fire regimes affected the recapture rate with lower values in extreme burning regimes and presenting a negative relationship with this component. Finally, the survival rate responds to the interaction between burning regimes and the seasonality and trend of precipitation, maintaining lower survival rates in the most extreme burning regimes. Our study suggests that to understand the effects of climate change and fire regimes, the synergistic effect on lizard populations should not be discounted, and that these effects may be complex and vary depending on the specific climate components and fire regimes involved. Our findings have important implications for the conservation of lizard populations in the Cerrado, a threatened ecosystem highly susceptible to climate change and fire.

Nature tourism contributes to social and economic development in parallel with environmental conservation, but intensive tourism can result in damage to the visited environment as well. While research comparing points with and without tourism has grown, specific aspects of these interactions between visitors and organisms, such as the effect of variation in the number of tourists or the importance of the receptive structure on animals, are still poorly known. In this study, we evaluated the responses of fish communities in similar tidal pools with the intensities of tourist activities in two beaches of Ceara, Brazil, Iparana (less structured tourism) and Flecheiras (more structured tourism) on days with low visitations (LV, during the week) and with high visitations (HV, weekend) through visual censuses. We compared the responses of fish communities between the beaches and the number of tourists in the area using community parameters (richness, total abundance, and Shannon's diversity). The similarity between tidal pool fish communities in the treatments was compared using ANOSIM and represented with NMDS based on the taxonomic and trophic functional groups. The effects of environmental and anthropogenic variables on the tidal pools were provided by a redundancy analysis (RDA) to show the key variables responsible for the assemblage structure. The tidal pool fish community diverged, both in terms of community parameters and trophic functional composition, between the beaches of Iparana and Flecheiras, but not between HV and LV days. Omnivores were more frequent in Flecheiras, possibly due to tourists feeding the fish. Our RDA indicates that water temperature and number of tourists are the main variables affecting fish assemblage. Tourism structure may sustain a more diverse fish community in Flecheiras, but our treatment days of high and low visitation showed no effect on the fish assemblage. Nevertheless, the number of visitors was one of the influential variables in the RDA. We also registered the effects of fish feeding on the presence of omnivores. Controlling the number of visitors and especially offering a good tourism structure are key factors for sustainable coastal tourism.

The threat suffered by the world's biodiversity has raised concern about the provision of ecosystem services essential for human life. Yet, biodiversity conservation does not guarantee ecosystem service provision, given species' interactions and variable responses to local and landscape factors. This work is divided into two chapters, both performed in 25 organic brassica crop fields from the Brazilian Federal District. In the first chapter, we evaluate how the landscape and local resources affect parasitoid diversity and aphid biological control. Locally, we compared parasitoid communities within the crops and on adjacent non-crop stripes and evaluated the effect of flower resource abundance on parasitoid diversity. At the landscape scale, we analyzed the effect of natural areas and their specific vegetational formations on parasitoid diversity and the scale of these effects. To close the first chapter, we evaluated the relationship between biodiversity and biological control. In the second chapter, we evaluate how noncrop plant stripes affect the network of interaction involving parasitoids and aphids in organic tropical brassica crops. First, we compared the topology of the interaction networks within the crops and on adjacent non-crop plants based on modularity and nestedness. Subsequently, we used the information from the networks to conduct simulate hostparasitoid population dynamics in scenarios of normal conditions, favoring an alternative native host, favoring an alternative pest, and favoring an alternative parasitoid. For that we used an adapted version of the generalized LotkaVolterra model. In our first chapter, we showed that: non-crop plants sustain parasitoid richness, but their flower resource abundance disrupts it; landscape composition outweighs local resources in mediating parasitoid diversity; near-crop forests (0.42 km) aid parasitoid richness, while farther grasslands (1.75 km) aid abundance; savannas boost both forest benefits on parasitoid richness and grassland benefits on abundance; positive biodiversity-pest control relationships occur only in moderately rich fields. In our second chapter, we showed that: interactions in the lower trophic level tend to be more nested, while in the higher trophic level they are more modular; most significant differences in network metrics between crop fields and non-crop plant stripes occurred at the higher trophic level; differences in modularity between non-crop plants and brassica fields were significantly larger than expected at random, while differences in nestedness were significantly smaller than expected at random; the difference in nestedness between aphid-parasitoid networks sustained by different non-crop plants was significantly smaller than expected at random; alternative hosts and parasitoids can help control the populations of the main brassica pest Brevicoryne brassicae. Our findings show that natural vegetation formations with different wood densities have complementary effects in parasitoid diversity in tropical agroecosystems and represent a useful baseline for development of management and zoning plans. Furthermore, we show that parasitoid trophic interactions sustained by non-crop plants represent interesting targets for management plans since they can influence pest populations in these systems.

There is a debate with limited scientific support regarding the feasibility of allowing cattle grazing in savannas within private lands of Brazil as a tool for adding conservation value and preventing intense fires by reducing fuel load. We assessed the impacts of cattle on vegetation structure, species richness and composition, and fuel load in Cerrado savannas. We sampled three paired savannas in Central Brazil: (G) grazing every three months, (U2.5) grazing excluded for 2.5 years, and (U) not grazed for at least 30 years. We sampled species cover through line-point intercept sampling and fuel load through harvesting, drying, and weighing litter and vegetation up to 6mm stem diameter. There were no differences among sites in vegetation cover above 2m height. Below 2m, plant cover was three times denser in U than G and intermediate at U2.5. Graminoids had the highest absolute cover and were higher in U2.5 (97%), followed by U (86%), and G (60%). Species richness decreased from 133 spp in U to 100 spp in U2.5, and 96 spp in G. Fuel load was 61% lower in G relative to U. The impact of cattle was relatively low, but for species richness vegetation recovered by half within 2.5 years. Given the need to promote economic activities in Legal Reserves in Brazil and reduce intense fires in fire-excluded savannas, such as private farms, Cerrado savannas have the potential to be used as intermittent pastures. Varied grazing regimes and regions should be studied to confirm the feasibility of using cattle as a conservation ally.

Fungi found in the phyllosphere play a crucial role in producing metabolites, acquiring nutrients, and protecting their hosts against pathogens. However, studies on phyllosphere microorganisms have received less attention. Understanding how soil changes and associated microbial communities modify the production of metabolites in a species is crucial for clarifying natural system interactions and the potential consequences of anthropogenic changes, such as increased nutrient deposition, on microorganism-plant interactions. Furthermore, changes in the soil can alter the chemical diversity of tree species and impact the production of antimicrobial compounds. Thus, the objective of this work is to describe and characterize the community of phyllosphere fungi of two woody species from the Cerrado and understand how changes in the soil can interfere with the phyllosphere community, the metabolites produced by plant species and the potential effects of substances for antifungal use. This work was carried out in an area of cerrado sensu stricto, where a soil fertilization experiment has been carried out since 1998 (IBGE Ecological Reserve). Experimental treatments include addition of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), nitrogen + phosphorus (NP) and liming (Ca). Two common woody species from the Cerrado were evaluated: Styrax ferrugineus and Ouratea hexasperma. In chapter 1, the fungal community was described for all treatments of both species through phyllosphere eDNA sequencing. In chapter 2, a metabolomic analysis of the leaves of S. ferrugineus was carried out and a correlation was made between the metabolites found and the fungi that inhabit the phyllosphere. Finally, in chapter 3, extracts from S. ferrugineus leaves were tested in biological assays against 4 species of phytopathogenic fungi (Botrytis sp., Colletotrichum sp., Corynespora sp. and Fusarium sp.) of economic importance for agriculture. The results reveal the predominance of the phylum Ascomycota in the phyllosphere of both species, regardless of treatments, and a greater abundance of the classes Dothideomycetes, Eurotiomycetes and Sordariomycetes. There was no great difference in the alpha diversity of both woody species, however, the beta diversity analyzes of S. ferrugineus indicate a significant change in the phyllosphere communities. Such changes were not related to the elemental content of the leaves and seem to be more related to the anatomical changes that the nutrient addition treatments promoted. Metabolomics leaves of S. ferrugineus were not strongly affected by treatments, with only 3.8% of detected ions varying significantly. Spearman's correlation analysis demonstrates that there is a relationship between the detected ions and the different orders of phyllosphere fungi, with very significant correlations in relation to the most diverse classes of fungi. These results are a first indication that the interactions of species that remain in the system after soil eutrophication are also affected and can have a significant impact on the dynamics between species. Extracts from S. ferrugineus leaves showed potential antifungal action only on Botrytis, with extracts from the liming treatment showing an inhibition greater than 70%. Future studies are necessary to isolate the substance(s) and elucidate their mechanism of action, for possible agricultural application.

This study aims to investigate the floristic, functional and environmental relationships of understory plant species in gallery forest and cerrado sensu stricto habitats within the Cerrado biome. Gallery forests are forest formations linked to water courses that intersperse the Cerrado Biome, and generally occur in mesotrophic soils, in forest strips whose tree canopies touch between the margins of narrow water courses, forming galleries (Ribeiro & Walter 2008). These environments play important hydrological and ecological roles. The cerrado sensu stricto is characterized by a continuous herbaceoussubshrub layer and discontinuous brevi-deciduous woody vegetation on dystrophic and predominantly deep soils. The environments of gallery forest and cerrado sensu stricto are quite different, shading in the forest causes complex ecological implications, both biotic and abiotic at the level of population, community and ecosystems, mainly in its understory, which is a layer more sensitive to changes. In the cerrado sensu stricto, in addition to the soil, fire is one of the main shaping factors. These environments also contrast in the availability of nutrients and water in the soil, with gallery forests being more humid, fertile and with a higher content of organic matter. These variations in the environment act as filters, influencing the composition and structure of communities by selecting plant assemblages adapted to each of these environments. In chapter one, we sought to examine species composition gradients and environmental predictors that influence floristic variation in the Cerrado gallery forest understory through gradient analyzes and generalized linear models. Furthermore, we investigated the distribution and sharing of its species with other biomes. We compiled all the species that make up the gallery forest understory in the Cerrado, totaling 1,385 species. We found that the gallery forest understory does not present a consistent pattern of floristic differentiation, showing itself to be highly floristically connected, differing from the patterns found for the arboreal stratum and other types of Cerrado vegetation. Environmental variables linked to water availability such as aridity index and soil water stress were the most important predictors in determining floristic variation in gallery forest understory in the Cerrado. The highest rates of species sharing occurred with the Atlantic Forest (91%), the Caatinga (73%) and the Amazon (65%), presenting only 39 species endemic to the Cerrado gallery forest understory. The results of chapter one show how the gallery forest understory presents a high floristic connection between ecoregions, a result of species adaptations and the environmental characteristics of the forests, which serve as shaded and humid dispersal corridors in the middle of the savannah. We reinforce that conservation strategies must consider the uniqueness of the floristic variation of tropical forests and the determinants of all vegetation strata at risk of biodiversity loss. In chapter two, we sampled and compared the richness, cover and life forms of species in the lower stratum of the contrasting environments of gallery forest and cerrado sensu stricto. We investigated the influence of canopy openness, amount of litter and soil variables on the distribution of species that inhabit the understory of these environments. We found a clear contrast between the gallery forest and cerrado sensu stricto environments, with significant variations in the coverage and richness of life forms in each environment, showing low sharing of species and genera between them. The gallery forests presented greater coverage and richness of shrub species, while the cerrado sensu stricto presented greater coverage of graminoids and greater richness of subshrubs. We also found that areas of gallery forest are closer floristically than areas of cerrado sensu stricto. The gallery forests had more fertile soils and higher levels of sand and litter, while the cerrado sensu stricto had greater canopy opening and higher levels of clay and silt in the soil. Canopy openness and silt were positively correlated with species cover in the cerrado sensu stricto understory, and P, Ca, Al and K were correlated with species cover in the gallery forest understory. In this work we aim to fill gaps in the understanding of the patterns of the herbaceous-shrub layer of the cerrado sensu stricto, and mainly of the gallery forests, highlighting their differences in response to the environment, and supporting more complete studies that encompass all strata of the vegetation and that are aimed at for the conservation and restoration of the Cerrado. In chapter three, we explore the variation in leaf functional attributes of herbaceous-shrub species from the contrasting environments of gallery forest and cerrado sensu stricto to assess whether these environments select species with different ecological strategies and generate communities with different functional structures. We found that savanna species have functional attributes more linked to conservation strategies, while forest species have attributes associated with acquisitive strategies and that the gallery forest environment selects species with attributes mainly linked to competition, therefore generating a functionally more dispersed community, while the cerrado presents species with a set of attributes aimed mainly at adaptation, generating functionally more grouped communities. We also found that the gallery forest and cerrado sensu stricto environments present distinct edaphic and light availability characteristics that influence the selection of leaf attributes in these environments.

Veredas are wet savanna physiognomies characterized as a vegetational complex in which an herbaceous-shrub layer dominates the landscape and the Mauritia flexuosa L. palm tree is distributed in its wetter zone. They are considered as "islands" of vegetation over saturated soils, embedded in a Cerrado savanna matrix over well drained soils. Understanding the taxonomic and phylogenetic alpha and beta diversities of veredas (Brazilian palm swamps) and their correlation with environmental (soil and climate) and spatial variables can provide insights for the management of this unique and endangered environment. Here we aim to assess how ecological and evolutionary processes affect the taxonomic and phylogenetic alpha and beta diversities of herbaceous-shrub species in veredas, and to identify the structuring process (based on neutral or niche theory) that influences these communities. To accomplish that we used the occurrence data of 560 herbaceous, subshrub, and shrub species available for 21 vereda sites (315 10-m transects) in central Brazil, together with their geographic coordinates, 12 soil physicochemical properties, and 14 bioclimatic variables. From this, we first assessed the species diversity in the veredas. We then verified the influence of soil variables on species composition using canonical correspondence analysis. To understand how soil physicochemical properties affect changes in species richness and cover, we used regression models. Secondly, we calculated the taxonomic β-diversity (TBD) indices of the veredas. Then we evaluated the correlation of soil, climatic and spatial factors with the species composition of the veredas using transformation-based Redundancy Analysis and variation partitioning. Finally, we constructed a phylogenetic tree of 540 vereda species and tested the relationship between phylogenetic metrics (alpha diversity) and environmental variables using ordinary least squares models. Afterwards, we examined the effects of soil distance, climatic distance, and spatial distance on phylogenetic β- diversity (PBD) using multiple regressions on distance matrices. Our results showed that the proportion of exclusive species in the veredas ranged from 4 to 38%, indicating that species distribution in the communities is mosaic-like. Vereda soils were acidic, with high levels of aluminum, organic matter, and sand, but low levels of phosphorus, magnesium, and calcium. Soil phosphorus, pH, organic matter, cation saturation, and sand proportion were important in understanding species composition (86% of the variation) and species richness (63%) in veredas. Phosphorus and pH were positively correlated with species richness, whereas organic matter was negatively correlated. Organic matter, cation saturation, and sand were negatively correlated with compositional similarity, but phosphorus was positively correlated. We observed that veredas with high floristic diversity had low fertility soils. Overall, there was high alpha and beta diversities in the studied sites and significant differences in the soil properties of the veredas when only soil factors were considered. Furthermore, we found that the plant communities were more influenced by the spatial turnover of species than by nestedness, with spatial predictors better explaining their composition and distribution. The most important environmental variables influencing the TBD of veredas are cation saturation, average temperature of the coldest quarter, precipitation of the coldest quarter, pH, annual precipitation, sand, and seasonal annual temperature. Finally, our findings revealed a pattern of phylogenetic clustering distribution in the veredas, reflecting the potential role of environmental filtering. Phylogenetic metrics were strongly influenced by bioclimatic variables and organic matter. The turnover component contributed more to PBD between sites than the nestedness component. Geographic, climatic, and soil distance matrices were mutually important to significantly explain the variance in PBD and in the turnover component. In summary, considering the TBD, stochastic processes, probably related to dispersal limitation, act in the formation of vereda communities. On the other hand, both phylogenetic clustering and phylogenetic dispersal act on the flora of veredas, indicating that the combined effect of niche and stochastic processes influences the PBD of these distinguished communities.

Size sexual dimorphism (SSD) is a phenomenon that occurs in almost all animal groups. Female-biased dimorphism, that is, females larger than males, is the most common, occurring in most species. Spiders, in particular, have the highest femalebiased SSD among terrestrial animals. The gigantism of females in this group is commonly associated with fecundity selection, a hypothesis that predicts that larger females lay more eggs, and consequently have greater fitness. However, for the evolution of the SSD, in addition to the change in the body size of one sex, it is necessary that the other does not accompany it. The differential equilibrium model proposes that different evolutionary pressures act on the body size of the sexes, when these pressures are antagonistic, the SSD evolves. We investigated the evolution of sexual dimorphism in spiders, using the family Thomisidae and the species Trichonephila clavipes (Araneidae) to assess how these evolutionary pressures act on the size of each sex. In the family Thomisidae, we aimed to identify which factors are responsible for the increase in female body size. Large bodies need more energy to sustain themselves, the Thomisidae family has a wide range of foraging strategies, some, such as foraging on flowers and aggressive mimicry, can provide higher energy intake and allow for an increased body size. To carry out this work, we extracted tomisids measurements of the size from the literature, and classified them into foraging strategies. Our results indicate that species that forage on flowers or adopt aggressive mimicry have significantly larger females and significantly smaller males than other species. These results suggest that foraging strategies play a central role in the evolution of SSD. In T. clavipes we aim to evaluate which pressures prevent males from increasing in size with females. Two complementary hypotheses have been proposed as limiting male size, protandry and the gravity hypothesis. Protandry as a way to limit male size suggests that males that develop faster have reproductive advantages in a context of scrambled competition, males with shorter development can reach females with little or no competition. The gravity hypothesis proposes that there is a positive relationship between size and climbing speed, up to a limit where increasing size does not favor climbing speed. We hypothesize that there is a trade-off between protandry and climbing speed in T. clavipes. To test this hypothesis, we accompanied T. clavipes from five localities and evaluated the size of males during the reproductive period. To evaluate the effect of size on climbing speed, we performed climbing experiments with males and females. Our results indicate that protandrous males are larger than late males, and also, that there is a positive relationship between climbing speed and size for males, but not for females. These results indicate that larger males have higher fitness, but that the size of males might be limited by the impacts of gravity on their mobility, as females, much larger than males, do not gain climbing advantages due to their increased size.

The adult sex ratio (ASR) is the ratio of adult males to adult females in a population. ARS is the result of sex-specific processes that affect the sex ratio throughout the lives of animals, as well as the sex difference in the survival of juveniles and/or adults. Information about the reproductive biology of captured marine fish is crucial to understanding population dynamics and changes in fish life history. In addition, accurate information on the sex of the commercial catch and on the sex ratio are fundamental requirements for fisheries, for the conservation of species and for the management of various fish populations. With that in mind, the present study aims to carry out a meta-analytical approach to investigate variations in the sex ratio of adult fish using a set of data obtained from the literature. We evaluated whether there is adult sex ratio bias taking into account how different data collection methods, fish families, sample size and general aspects of biology can influence the sex ratio of adult fish. Our results did not show significant effects of the sample size, but we observed significant effects in the methods and families on the RSA variation. We found many variations in RSA studies, especially regarding sample sizes and methodologies used. The standardization of studies would allow for better analyzes and comparisons. Furthermore, our meta-analysis is important to evaluate methodological protocols in the study of ASR and to understand how ASR estimates are affected. We suggest that further studies to understand the causes of its variation and explore the implications of RSA for reproduction and population dynamics in fish.

Ecosystem services are natural processes that society depends and benefits to survive. Among the services provided by dung beetles, secondary dispersal of seeds, a very important step in the life cycle of various plants, stand out. By burying feces mixed with viable seeds, these are moved to places with more favorable conditions for germination and seedling establishment, which can also help in habitat restoration. Since secondary dispersal is directly influenced by the species, functional group, and beetles size, as well as by seed size and burial depth, this work aimed to assess the contribution of beetles in secondary seed dispersal in the Cerrado, evaluating metrics of beetle community that provide this service, the vertical horizontal seed dispersal, and the effect of seed size on dispersal. For sampling and community characterization, pitfalls baited with human feces were installed in two areas of cerrado sensu stricto. Experimental stations with baits containing plastic beads of two sizes were used to assess vertical and horizontal secondary seed dispersal. This work proposes the use of five variables to evaluate secondary dispersal, considering the participation of the dung beetles in dispersal both below and above ground, a relevant aspect from the point of view of both plants and secondary dispersers. The experiments took place during the rainy season from November 2020 to January 2021. Our results show that paracoprids are positively associated with horizontal dispersals of small beads above ground and negatively associated with vertical dispersal of large beads below ground. These data are controversial because large paracoprids were expected to tunnel deeper and more complex in tropical and open Cerrado environments. Thus, paracoprids occupy the most relevant role for secondary seed dispersal in Cerrado. The dominance of Oxysternon palemo demonstrates the relevance of this species in the restoration of the Cerrado, especially of the cerrado sensu stricto physiognomy, because the species can show resource allocation behavior. There was no significant response about the vertical dispersal above ground, however, we reinforce the potential protection that V1 can provide to seeds. We also found a negative relationship between large paracoprids abundance and vertical dispersal below ground of large beads. Habitat alteration can interfere with the functional richness of dung beetles, leading to different responses when analyzing the provision of ecosystem services. Therefore, strategies involving the reintroduction/maintenance of dung beetles and mammals favor habitat restoration due to seed dispersal, mainly of native species.

Functional responses within the plant community are constrained by the fire regime, making imperative an understanding of the variety plant strategies among species and functional groups to ensure effective management. In savanna biomes, grasses, herbs, shrubs, and trees form a continuum, which range from the herbaceous to the woody layer. Shrubs play a vital role in the landscape, acting as a linking component between the herbaceous and woody layer. However, shrubs are seldom addressed in studies on fire impacts in the Cerrado, with the majority of knowledge on the woody layer focused on tree species. The aim of this work was to measure the effects of fire on shrub structure by assessing recovery of vegetative organs and estimating differences in reproductive organ production. The experimental fires were set at the end of the rainy season six plots was burned independently as a head fire. Davilla elliptica A.St.-Hil., Heteropterys campestris A.Juss., and Protium ovatum Engl., are the species target of this study. Before the burn there were no significant differences between the species in terms of height or diameter. As result of the burn, we observed a high occurrence of topkill, mainly in the species with lower diameter. All species presented a high number of resprouts reaching 10 resprouts/individual. The diameter was not recovered within the period o 1 year, as well as the length of resprout was lower than the height before the burn. Notably, H. campestris and P. ovatum showed a reproduction fire stimulated. In this study we presented the strategies of shrubs against fire and how it contrasts with trees.

Ecophysiology is the line of research where physiological parameters are used to quantify the interactions between the organisms and the environment. Despite its origins in botany at the end of the 19th century, animal ecophysiology experiments were developed between 1910 and 1919, including studies with amphibians and reptiles. Although Brazil presents the largest diversity of amphibians and the third-largest diversity of reptiles globally, the first study focusing on Brazilian herpetofauna's ecophysiology is dated 1989. Thirty-two years later, this research field is still incipient in the country. Here we aim to analyze the studies on Brazilian herpetofauna's ecophysiology in the last 32 years. Through a bibliographic review, we highlight the most sampled groups, the gaps in the literature, and the prospects for the future of this research field. Although it is still an incipient area, ecophysiology has already proven to be an important tool for assessing the impact of climate change on global herpetofauna, assessing the species' extinction risk, and providing information to underpin conservation policies. We noticed several gaps in Brazilian literature, such as groups not yet sampled or with insufficient data. These gaps must be filled with future research. Of the 43 articles analyzed on the ecophysiology of Brazilian herpetofauna, 36% were written by women and 64% by men. Only 15 articles were led by women (35%), and 10 had a woman as senior author (23%). Most of the articles had no female co-authors; few had both genders. The analysis of citations revealed a higher number for articles led by men. Recent articles led by women have faced citation challenges and persistent gender disparities. A new way of distributing the funds and promoting research in Brazil is necessary so that different states and regions have equivalent investment, reducing scientific research bias. Then, we will also be able to balance the amount of studies in the different Brazilian biomes, enlarging sample sizes in Pantanal and Pampa, for example, and contributing to protective measures concerning degradation in Brazilian biomes. Therefore, future studies must prioritize this discussion at the national level, changing the perspective of knowledge and basic science, ensuring more effective preservation of our biodiversity, and expanding the research for species conservation and ecosystem services.

Nutrient addition in dystrophic environments alters various aspects of plant communities and consequently the functioning of ecosystems. In the Brazilian savannah known as the Cerrado, a hotspot for biodiversity conservation, woody plants are adapted to nutrient-poor soils and have a conservative strategy for using resources. Taxonomic and functional responses of tropical plants to the addition of nutrients to the soil are poorly studied despite the rapid changes observed in these ecosystems. To understand the response of the plant community to the addition of nutrients, we conducted a study in a long-term fertilization experiment, in which N, P, NP and liming were applied to the soil, with the last application in 2018. We hypothesized that: I) there is a change in species composition and decreased taxonomic diversity in the nutrient addition treatments, especially in the NP treatment; II) soil nutrient addition alters functional richness, equitability and divergence, decreasing functional diversity in the treatments, especially in NP and liming; III) the variation in functional traits will be explained mainly by the change in species, but intraspecific trait variation will be significant; IV) the addition of nutrients to the soil promotes greater intraspecific trait variation in nutritional traits than morphological ones; V) the removal of nutritional limitation in Cerrado soils alters the strategy of woody species and VI) there is greater variation in traits in the treatment with the addition of nutrients than in liming. To test these hypotheses, a floristic inventory of woody species was carried out and traitsrelated to the use of nutritional resources were collected from 676 individuals of 18 dominant species in the area, representing 75% of the relative abundance in each treatment. A change in species composition and a decrease in taxonomic diversity was observed in all treatments, especially in NP. Functional diversity was highest in the N treatment, followed by NP, control, P and finally liming, with the lowest functional diversity value. The variation in traits was explained mainly by species composition, followed by the intraspecific component of variation. There was a change from a conservative to an acquisitive strategy in Qualea parviflora, Rourea induta and Roupala montana in the treatment with combined N and P fertilization, while Dalbergia miscolobium and Rourea induta showed a tendency towards conservative changes in the P treatment. Competitive interactions and a reduction in fitness explain the changes in species composition, with some species benefiting from the addition of nutrients. Differences in functional richness, equitability and divergence between treatments describe the changes in functional diversity. The results found here show that the addition of nutrients to the soil affects several aspects of woody plant communities, with residual effects being found even after five years without new fertilizations.

Nonnative populations of an invasive species must face obstacles during their transport, introduction, establishment, and dispersal. Climate and resource availability represent some of these obstacles. The response of nonnative populations to climate will depend on the realized climatic niche of the species. With respect to resource availability, the response will depend on how the life history attributes of the organisms react to variations in resources. The giant African snail (Lissachatina fulica, Bowdich 1822) is a mollusk native to East Africa and classified as invasive. Nonnative populations of L. fulica occur throughout the tropical region of the world and are recognized for their wide climatic tolerance and association with humans. This thesis aims to evaluate the response of the giant African snail (L. fulica) to global, regional, and local climate variation and resource variation. In the first chapter, through a systematic literature review, the attributes that define the invasive potential of L. fulica and the characteristics of the sites where it occurs are identified. In the second chapter, by modeling the potential distribution, the expansion of the climatic niche of L. fulica is evaluated as a function of its dispersal around the world. In the third chapter, through multivariate ordination analysis, the variation in L. fulica population density in climate and intervention in the Neotropical region is evaluated. In the fourth chapter, through fieldwork, we evaluate how the nonnative population of L. fulica located in the Brazilian Federal District (DF) responds to small variations in climate and the presence or absence of resources. In the fifth chapter, through the morphometric evaluation of L. fulica growth in the laboratory, a new method for the identification of hermaphroditic individuals is proposed. The systematic review showed fragmented knowledge about the attributes of L. fulica and almost no knowledge about where it occurs. Potential distribution modeling showed that the realized climatic niche of L. fulica has changed since its dispersal from Africa, in part by its trajectory along different biogeographic regions. Multivariate ordination analysis showed that the population density of L. fulica in the Neotropics responds to specific combinations of temperature and precipitation but not intervention. Fieldwork with the DF population of L. fulica showed that the percentages of dead individuals and of individuals with eggs respond to maximum temperature and minimum relative humidity. Regarding resources, the results obtained in the field show that population density responds to the presence of soil and that the percentage of hermaphrodites responds to the percentage of builtup area. The morphometric evaluation of the shell of L. fulica pointed to a shell length range where the transition to hermaphrodites probably takes place and suggests two morphological indices that aim to identify individuals who have already gone through this transition. These results open the door to the development of multiple lines of knowledge generation on nonnative populations of L. fulica, making it possible to optimize management strategies.

Disturbances like fire alter the spatial and temporal distribution of resources for fauna and generate environmental heterogeneity. Consequently, animals may modify their use of the space in response to fire-induced changes. How animals respond to fire effects depends on the species' traits, affecting the communities taxonomically and functionally. We used linear regressions to test the hypothesis of “pyrodiversity begets biodiversity” for taxonomic and functional metrics of mammalian communities of a neotropical savanna. We also applied occupancy modeling to evaluate how spatiotemporal variation in fire regime affects the use of space by medium and large mammals. Also, we verified the effects of fire severity on non-volant small mammal communities of gallery forests. Our results demonstrated that mammal taxonomic and functional richness increased with pyrodiversity while taxonomic diversity and functional dispersion were higher at intermediate values of pyrodiversity. At the population level, we found species-specific effects of fire regime on the space used by mammals. Chrysocyon brachyurus used more intensively pyrodiverse areas and sites with a higher proportion of recently burned areas. In contrast, Tapirus terrestris preferred sites with lower pyrodiversity. Fire mosaic did not affect space use by deer. In gallery forests, fire severity positively affected taxonomic diversity and functional dispersion of small mammals. However, this effect occurred at the expense of a marked decrease in forest-dependent species in sites severely burned. This study contributes to reducing gaps in the knowledge concerning the fire effects on neotropical medium and large mammals and reinforces that fire management strategies must consider the local context and species-specific faunal responses to fire. Furthermore, we highlight the urgency of protecting fire-sensitive habitats against severe wildfires. As extreme wildfire events become more frequent there is a risk of losing fundamental components of biodiversity not fire-adapted.

The wide geographic variation in birds’ intra- and interspecific survival and reproduction strategies has been a significant part of scientific discussions since the middle of the last century. Several parallel hypotheses have been formulated to explain such variations better. However, the robust environmental covariation of birds has directed both questions and answers to increasingly direct and measurable environmental characteristics. Climate, weather conditions, and variations in the weather are important factors that can potentially answer residual variation in bird reproductive traits. Because they represent a high investment, birds’ clutch and egg sizes have the potential to respond directly to the climatic conditions of a region or season. Although well studied, there is no consensus on the nuances between the causes and effects of climatic conditions on these large-scale bird breeding traits. As a thesis, I defined that “breeding traits of Kingbirds (Tyrannus genus), specifically clutch and egg sizes, vary as a function of climatic conditions on spatial and temporal scales”. We gathered information from 1,657 clutches and 5,644 eggs of Kingbirds species, obtained directly from 32 worldwide ornithological collections, to answer how climate acts on variation in clutch and egg size of birds across spatial and temporal scales. In the first chapter, we tested the variation of breeding traits as a function of climate, sub-climates, and historical temperature and precipitation variables to analyze the relationship between clutch and egg sizes at different geoclimatic scales. Both breeding traits varied among climates, regional climates, and local temperature and precipitation conditions. Still, sites with colder winters had the opposite effect, where the Kingbirds’ egg size tended to increase in environments with less extreme drought periods. The significant relationship between the largest clutches with the greatest climatic variation regions and larger eggs with lower temperatures places may explain the increase in these traits with latitude. In the second chapter, we used 1,145 clutches and 4,061 eggs of Kingbirds, overlapped with weather time series over 116 years, to assess the relationships between breeding traits with climate anomalies in the year preceding laying. Interannual temperature and precipitation variation affected the reproductive traits of Kingbirds. Eggs and clutches were higher in years with more stable weather conditions. Precipitation variation was an essential variable to egg sizes, and only temperature affected these reproductive traits near breeding when years with higher temperatures resulted in larger clutches and smaller eggs. In the third chapter, we used the fitted parameters of statistical models (α, β’s) obtained in Chapter 2 of this paper to project possible effects of climate change on Tyrannus reproductive traits. We generated temperature and precipitation variables between the years 2020 and 2100 of four Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSP) scenarios, gathered from four General Circulation Models (GCM) of the sixty Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) for both reproductive traits. Clutch (T.N.) and egg (T.O.) sizes decreased in all future scenarios (e.g. SSP5-8.5/2100; T.N.: β= -1.29, T.O.: β= -0.04), driven primarily by increased temperature and seasonality parameters. The results of this work support my thesis that “reproductive traits of Kingbirds, specifically egg and clutch size, vary as a function of climatic conditions over spatial and temporal scales”. Furthermore, climate change has a significant impact, with the potential to decrease the eggs and clutches of this group over time. Notably, the imminent implications of local climate change on species physiology, with decreased fitness of organisms hatching from smaller eggs and possible population losses with decreasing clutch sizes, even for widely distributed groups such as species in the genus Tyrannus.

Understanding the thermal ecology of lizards is essential for anticipating and addressing the challenges posed by climate change and increasing environmental pressures. This work addresses two crucial aspects of the biology of Notomabuya frenata, a neotropical lizard widely distributed in the Brazilian Cerrado. In the first chapter, we explore temperaturerelated phenotypic plasticity. Contrary to our initial expectations, individuals from gallery forests exhibited a remarkably superior locomotor performance, regardless of temperatures, when compared to their counterparts from the cerrado sensu stricto. Our findings indicate that N. frenata exhibits phenotypic plasticity in temperature-related traits, where gallery forest individuals may be better equipped to deal with the deleterious effects of rising temperatures. Unfortunately, most individuals of N. frenata are found in open areas of the Cerrado biome, which is increasingly threatened by conversion to pastures and agricultural land. The second chapter addresses caudal autotomy as an anti-predatory strategy, examining its impact on locomotor performance in different locations of the Cerrado. Surprisingly, body and tail size had no impact on locomotor performance, defying conventional expectations; The regeneration of the tail turned out to be a surprising advantage. This study broadens our understanding of thermal and anti-predatory adaptations in the Neotropical lizard Notomabuya frenata, underlining the importance of considering specific environmental contexts for species conservation.

The increasing demand for food and raw materials, driven by population growth and global consumption patterns, has resulted in agriculture's occupation of over a third of the terrestrial environment. This rise in productive activities directly conflicts with biodiversity conservation, with habitat loss and fragmentation being the main drivers of the global reduction in biological diversity. Habitat loss diminishes resources and suitable areas for species occurrence, while fragmentation transforms extensive areas into smaller, isolated fragments, impacting environmental conditions and hindering gene flow between populations. With over a third of the Earth's surface dedicated to agriculture, understanding how these changes in the landscape affect species movement becomes crucial for individual survival and population persistence. Different types of movement, such as migration, dispersion, and foraging, play distinct roles in species survival and adaptation. Migratory movements, for example, occur on a large spatial-temporal scale, often related to climatic seasonality. Daily movements within an animal's home range are associated with searching for food, avoiding predators, and recognizing new areas. The use of models in ecology emerges as a valuable tool for understanding the underlying mechanisms of ecological patterns and processes. By simplifying the real world, these models allow for the control of variables such as population size, dispersion, and habitat structure, providing greater precision in analyzing the effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on bird movement. The proposed thesis aims to understand how habitat loss and fragmentation affect bird movement within their home ranges. The first chapter evaluates the state of the art and quantifies knowledge gaps essential for individual-based population viability analyses. The data collected in this chapter support the construction of a database for the development of the second chapter, which seeks to understand the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between landscape and bird movement through simulation models. The third chapter conducts a meta-analysis to validate part of the results obtained in the second chapter, exploring the impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation on home range size and the time birds spend in movement. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the effects of human activity on the dynamics and survival of bird populations.

Intraspecific morphological variations in flight ability in polyphagous insects may be an adaptation for foraging, habitat colonization and host selection. In polyphagous and dispersing insects, such as Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), dispersing (long distance) and trivial (short distance) flight morphotypes have already been proposed as adaptations to hosts and habitats. The objective of this dissertation was to test how intraspecific morphological variations of B. tabaci are mediated by local resource quality and the role of landscape as an environmental filter of these variations. For this, the wing and thorax shape of insect populations was evaluated with geometric morphometry analyses. Insects were collected in 15 farms inserted in different matrices to verify the role of landscape composition on the occurrence of morphotypes in the population. We tested the quality of the resource as a proxy for intraspecific dispersal variations with collections of insects at different phenological stages of the resource in a greenhouse experiment. Sexual dimorphism in wing shape was found, with males having more curved wings while females have more elongated wings. The dispersal and possibly colonizing morphotypes appear in a gradient of shapes, with more curved wings at the beginning (vegetative) and end (senescence) of the plant cycle. Near the senescence of the resource, there is possibly a trigger for dispersal related to perceived food quality. When the resource is predictable and quality, rectilinear wing morphotypes occur more frequently in the population. At this stage, the population has more stimuli for flights only between microhabitats. The landscape acted as an environmental filter in morphotype selection, depending on the composition of native vegetation areas near the crops. Apparently, only individuals with wings adapted to overcoming obstacles can circumvent barriers imposed by the native vegetation. Thus, it was observed that there are intraspecific morphological variations of dispersal in whiteflies to optimize the exploitation of the resource. Furthermore, these variations are mediated by insect-plant interactions in a scale-dependent manner depending on landscape composition. The existence of dispersal morphotypes in B. tabaci has also been explicitly demonstrated.

Prescribed burns are an important tool for the management and conservation of protected areas and understanding their effects on the ecosystem is essential to ensure the effectiveness of these burns. Despite that, few studies assess the indirect impacts of prescribed fires on relevant ecological processes in tropical savannahs. In the present study, we investigated short-term effects of prescribed burns on seed removal by small mammals and invertebrates in grassland areas of the Cerrado, the most diverse savannah of the world. There was a short-term effect (up to 3 months) of the prescribed burns on the abundance of small mammals and on the species composition of this group, but not on invertebrate abundance. The fire did not markedly affect the overall seed removal rate or the relative role of small mammals and invertebrates in this process. However, invertebrates found seed depots more frequently when considering habitat characteristics (ground plant cover and vegetation height), the occurrence of burning, and removal agent (small mammals or invertebrates). We also found opposite effects of vegetation height on seed removal. Small mammals removed seeds more frequently at higher heights whereas removal by invertebrates was negatively related to this variable, in agreement with a ‘landscape of fear’ scenario for small mammals. Our results provided support for the assumption that prescribed fires carried out in a controlled manner and at the beginning of the dry season do not significantly affect the natural processes of predation and seed removal by animals in areas of Cerrado grasslands. Besides being an important tool for preventing large-scale fires, prescribed fires also promote greater small-mammal diversity at a landscape scale.

Bird migrations are a phenomenon that has long been subject of great interest in the scientific community. Mostly, research has been focused on a limited set of migratory and species systems, with an emphasis on the migratory systems from the temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere. Only at the end of the 20th century, the diversity of migratory patterns and behaviors among species that breed and migrate in the Neotropical region was evidenced. However, significant knowledge gaps on the migration ecology of these species still remain. The comparison of migratory strategies among species derived from the same common ancestor holds a unique opportunity to assess the adaptive value of migrations. The Tyrannidae family is a suitable model for studies on migration ecology. They are largely distributed and abundant in New World and represents the family with the greatest diversity of migratory species in the Neotropical region, in addition to presenting varied and complex migratory patterns. In this context, this thesis aims to deepen the scientific knowledge about the factors that determine the migration of birds in the Neotropical region, focusing on the Tyrannidae family and on species that breed in South America. The thesis defended here is that the migration of tyrant flycatchers in South America is primary driven by seasonality in competition, not by seasonality in climate, and that species benefit from the surplus in the resources available at the breeding grounds, even when they invest more in the migration (i.e., migratory distance). In this context, this thesis is based on the following chapters: 1) Seasonal variation in competition and not ecological productivity drives the austral migration of tyrant flycatchers; 2) Clutch size associates with migration distance in South American land birds; e 3) Seasonal variation in competition affects clutch and egg size in migratory South American land birds.

Chaco Seco is the largest semi-arid region of South America. The high rates of dry forest suppression in recent years have made it a global hotspot for deforestation, with cattle ranching and extensive agriculture being the primary practice. Habitat conversion has led to an increase in the fragmentation process, transforming the landscape, supported by economic and development policies. The fragmentation process affects bird and specialist bird communities adapted to the semi-arid environment, changing the landscape structure, reducing the habitat surface, and the availability of resources, and altering the microenvironment. Therefore, this work discusses the responses of bird communities to changes in landscape structure, as well as changes in the microenvironment resulting from habitat loss and dry forest fragmentation and the potential use of acoustic indices as a quick assessment of bird communities aiming at increase monitoring in threatened areas such as Chaco Seco. This thesis is divided into three chapters: 1 impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation on taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of birds (Impacts of habitat loss and habitat fragmentation on multiple facets of avian diversity in a global deforestation hotspot); 2 bird responses to the microenvironment measuring the vegetation structure and environmental variables in fragments that structurally connect the landscape (Bird communities in the Dry Chaco of South America: vegetation structure and climate effects); and 3 performance of acoustic indices in the representation of bird richness in continuous forests and forest corridors (Acoustic indices as a rapid assessment of bird communities in the Dry Chaco).