Milton de Souza Mendonça

Examining spillover between habitat boundaries offers a key opportunity to understand how neighbouring habitats may affect each other. Although extensively studied, ecological responses at forest–grassland edges are variable across trophic levels and their underlying interactions. Thus, tackling the subject from a multitrophic perspective may yield valuable insights into how energy may flow across forest–grassland edges. We asked whether a forest–grassland edge functions as an ecological barrier or a continuum for species interactions across space and trophic levels. We also examined whether species influence in the network is better explained by their distribution across the edge (spatial structure) or by their connections with other species (modular structure). We studied a tri‐trophic (prey–consumer–parasitoid) antagonistic system at Atlantic Forest and Pampa Grassland edges, arranged in fire‐prone mosaics in southern Brazil. Using network dissimilarity and multilayer approaches, we investigated species and trophic‐level contributions to connectivity across the spatial/modular landscape by sampling cavity‐nesting hymenopterans and their interactions across a distance gradient from the habitat edge We found spatially segregated modules confined to each habitat, indicating that the edge likely functions as an ecological barrier. Network dissimilarity peaked in cross‐habitat comparisons, reinforcing the separation between forest and grassland ecosystems. While all trophic levels were less adaptable to shifts between habitats and modules, they showed greater adaptability across spatial strata within each habitat. The main factor determining species influence throughout the network was their ability to move across spatial layers, although trophic‐level and habitat subgroups also responded to other variables. Cross‐edge species had greater influence in connecting habitats internally than in serving as energy pathways between them. Our findings reveal that Atlantic Forest‐Pampa Grassland edges likely constitute an ecological barrier network‐wise. However, edge effects increasing interaction richness and abundance may highlight the importance of edge proximity to key species promoting within‐habitat network cohesion. Our results highlight how network dynamics may span across habitat edges with significant species turnover, calling for active conservation strategies to prevent forest encroachment and maintain grassland habitats—while recognising that disturbances within the roughly 40‐m edge effects zone could potentially cascade inward, influencing species and interactions beyond the edge.

Butterflies have long been a focus of scientific study and conservation efforts worldwide. They are also unique among insects because of the positive attention they inspire in the public. Over the past twenty or so years, governments have also taken an interest in butterflies because of their importance in maintaining ecosystem services. Butterflies serve dual roles in most ecosystems: they are herbivores when larval and potential pollinators when adults. While these traits make butterflies a unique taxon, they can also make managing and conserving butterfly populations difficult. The dearth of information about the ecology of many butterfly species can make it hard to predict what may happen in the future under habitat fragmentation and climate change scenarios. This puts the public and conservation organizations in the position of not knowing what should be done to manage these species and communities.

Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) are among the most well‐studied organisms, with a vast literature covering their ecology, evolution, and natural history. However, many aspects of their biology continue to be discovered and rediscovered, including their wild feeding behaviours, preferences, causes and consequences. Here, we present and describe photographic and video records of adult butterflies exploiting unusual sources, including previously undocumented feeding behaviours for some species, and supporting natural history note novelties in already known feeding behaviours for others. We gathered a total of 23 records of primarily nectar‐ and fruit‐feeding butterfly species exploiting diverse sources, including fungi, flowering plants, withered plant parts, and a dead caterpillar. All records were made in different regions of Brazil, during field expeditions and naturalist walks, and were classified according to the butterfly species/groups involved, the type of resource exploited, and the location of the record. These records reinforce that butterflies can exhibit various feeding behaviours and may be involved in interspecific interactions and/or respond to food availability due to anthropogenic actions. Furthermore, this compilation of records reinforces the importance of publishing and sharing natural history observations to support and enhance the quality of ecological and taxonomic studies.

Messatoporus bisignatus Aguiar & Supeleto, sp. nov. is described and illustrated. The new species was extensively reared from trap nests colonized by Auplopus subaurarius Dreisbach, 1963 (Hymenoptera, Pompilidae), in an area of secondary Atlantic Forest in southern Brazil. Two other species, M. elektor Santos, 2013 and M. opacus Santos, 2013, were also reared from the same host, but in lesser numbers. The previously unknown males of M. elektor Santos, 2013, M. opacus Santos 2013 and M. unidentatus Santos, 2013 are described and illustrated. New females and significant morphological variation are reported for these species, previously known only from a few specimens. New geographical records are reported for M. unidentatus (Brazil, two localities in ES), M. elektor and M. opacus (Brazil, two localities in RS).

Organismal colours have long captivated and inspired naturalists and scientists. Since colours depend on species' life history, it is expected that they respond to environmental changes, especially in an increasingly anthropized world. Aiming to evaluate how this trait responds to different anthropogenic disturbances, we assess wing colour aspects of fruit-feeding butterflies sampled in Atlantic Forest remnants. These remnants, with well-defined understory and canopy, are crossed by roads and trails acting as artificial edges and besiege exotic pine silviculture areas of different ages, representing landscapes commonly found in the subtropical Atlantic Forest. Through standardised photographs, we obtained colour measurements of brightness, saturation, contrast, colour diversity and heterogeneity, plus the presence of eyespots and iridescence for dorsal and ventral wing surfaces of 47 butterfly species, and evaluated their distribution and abundance in the distinct environments. We hypothesise colour variables will differ in each environment due to their biotic and abiotic differences, being less diverse in anthropized ones due to the pressures generated by disturbances. As expected, different natural environments have diverse and unique colour traits that are not found in anthropized ones; however, artificial edges present brighter and even more diverse colours. Pine silviculture areas, despite differing succession stages, all have decreases in colour diversity. We demonstrate that different anthropogenic actions can lead the most colourful species to disappear. Therefore, we argue butterfly colouration can be seen as a bioindicator, representing a useful form of functional biodiversity, providing conservation status and facilitating communication with the general public.

Although astrobiology studies how life functions and evolves, ecology is still largely overlooked in astrobiology research. Here we present an argument for astroecology, a merger of ecology and astrobiology, a self-aware scientific endeavour. Ecology is rarely mentioned in influential documents like the NASA Astrobiology Strategy (2015), and terms such as ‘niche’ can end up being used in a less precise fashion. As ecology deals with sequential levels of organization, we suggest astrobiologically-relevant problems for each of these levels. Organismal ecology provides ecological niche modelling, which can aid in evaluating the probability that Earth-like life would survive in extraterrestrial environments. Population ecology provides a gamut of models on the consequences of dispersal, and if lithopanspermia can be validated as a form of space dispersal for life, then metabiospheres and similar astrobiological models could be developed to understand such complex structure and dynamics. From community ecology, the discussion of habitability should include the concept of true vacant habitats (a misnomer, perhaps better called ‘will-dwells’) and contributions from the blossoming field of microbial ecology. Understanding ecosystems by focusing on abiotic properties is also key to extrapolating from analogue environments on Earth to extraterrestrial ones. Energy sources and their distribution are relevant for ecological gradients, such as the biodiversity latitudinal gradient – would tropics be species-rich in other inhabited planets? Finally, biosphere ecology deals with integration and feedback between living and non-living systems, which can generate stabilized near-optimal planetary conditions (Gaia); but would this work for other inhabited planets? Are there ‘strong’ (like Earth) and ‘weak’ (perhaps like Mars) biospheres? We hope to show ecology can contribute relevant ideas to the interdisciplinary field of astrobiology, helping conceptualize further levels of integration. We encourage new partnerships and for astrobiologists to take ecology into account when studying the origin, evolution and distribution of life in the universe.

Ecological networks describe community structure by focusing on how nodes are connected by links (interactions). Related species have higher probabilities of sharing links if interactions depending on phylogeny and/or species are functionally similar; however, if and how this modularity impacts higher trophic levels is still an open question. We aimed to evaluate the effect of different structuring factors on an observed bipartite network of galling insects and associated parasitoids on a system with two closely related and recently diverged plants, where host‐tracking could be underway. We hypothesized that gall structure, galler taxonomy and host plant identity could contribute, from a higher to a lower degree respectively, to network modularity by generating a selective pressure on parasitoids. Samples were collected between May 2015 and June 2017 in the forest areas of Porto Alegre, southern Brazil. Overall, we found 4629 galls of three monophagous and four oligophagous galling species; 664 parasitoid individuals were obtained and classified into 37 morphospecies. We constructed four networks with the collected data by organising nodes according to the tested factors, that is, gall structure, galler taxonomy, host plant identity and gall–plant interaction. All networks were significantly modular, and for three out of four analysed factors (gall structure, galler taxonomy and gall–plant interaction), modularity levels were at least intermediate (at about Q = 0.4). Barriers to or preferences for certain interactions appear to be responses to multiple concomitant factors. However, galler taxonomy and host plant identity are somehow stronger determinants for the parasitoids in terms of attacked hosts.

Two new species of Asphondylia inducing galls on Asteraceae are described, A. gaucha from the state of Rio Grande do Sul and A. mineira from the state of Minas Gerais. Their host plants are Vernonanthura discolor (Sprengel) H. Rob., and V. polyanthes (Sprengel) Vega & Dematteis, respectively, both native to Brazil. Illustrations of relevant morphological characters are provided. The new species are compared with congeneric Neotropical species. The types are deposited in the Entomological Collection of the Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.