Monique Celião de Oliveira

Bromeliads provide key microhabitats for many tropical anurans, offering water reservoirs for reproduction and shelter from predators. We investigated the factors influencing anuran occupancy in bromeliad patches in the Atlantic Forest of northeastern Brazil. Over 13 months, we surveyed 100 bromeliad patches, each consisting of 4–104 individual plants, and recorded eight anuran species, all bromelicolous. Contrary to expectations, morphological traits of bromeliads—including species, size, and spatial arrangement—had no significant effect on anuran richness or abundance. Likewise, canopy cover did not significantly influence anuran richness or abundance, and temperature and humidity were excluded from analysis due to low variation across sampling sites. Despite favorable structural conditions, overall species diversity was low. In contrast, the presence of the predatory theraphosid spider Pachistopelma rufonigrum had a strong negative effect on anuran occupancy, emerging as the most influential factor in our models. This predator–prey interaction may contribute to the apparent absence of bromeligenous frog species in the study area. Our findings highlight the role of biotic interactions—rather than habitat structure—in shaping anuran assemblages in bromeliad microhabitats.

Pentastomida are lung parasites of a variety of hosts, mainly reptiles. Raillietiella is the genus with the largest number of species, whose taxonomic identification is still largely based on morphological data alone. In this classification, differences divide the genus into morphotypic groups. The Raillietiella parasites of insectivorous lizards, for example, are divided into “Group I” with species with hooks with sharp tips and “Group II” with posterior hooks with blunt tips. In the present work, we used molecular analysis to infer the morphological variation in hooks and size of specimens of Raillietiella mottae, parasites of several species of insectivorous lizards. Our results demonstrate that morphological differences comprise a phenotypic plasticity of a single species, whose variation is associated with host species, with females being larger and with hooks with blunt tips in nocturnal geckos and smaller ones with sharp tips in diurnal insectivorous lizards of different species, sizes, and habitats.

In this study, we investigated the infection by pulmonary parasites in the water snake Helicops angulatus. We found four nymphs of the pentastomide parasite Sebekia oxycephala, parasitizing two adult females H. angulatus collected in the municipality of Rio Tinto, Paraíba, Brazil. This occurrence is likely due to the nymphs of this parasite directly infecting aquatic intermediate hosts, such as fish. The result of this study represents the first record of pentastomid infecting H. angulatus.