Adriano Medeiros DeSouza

Universidade Estadual da Paraíba | UEPB · Departamento de Farmácia

Harvestmen are mostly composed of very endemic and narrow-ranged species, especially those living in tropical forests. Hygrophily, cryptic behavior, and low dispersion capacity are considered the biological causes of this distributional trait. Thus, Opiliones have been successfully used as models for biogeography (historic, phylogeography, diversit...

Harvestmen are considered excellent models for investigating defensive behavior, as they can demonstrate primary mechanisms, such as cryptic coloration, and secondary mechanisms, such as the release of odoriferous substances. In our study, we investigated whether the time of the day and sexual dimorphism influence the defensive strategies of the go...

Understanding the effects of environmental conditions on biodiversity may provide cues regarding the resilience of ecological communities facing human activities in tropical forests. Under this scenario, harvestmen are among the most ideal models for understanding the ecological dynamics associated with shifts in environmental conditions. In this s...

The assembly of communities is often viewed as a process involving the dispersal of species from a regional pool. An oceanic island provides a unique opportunity to test such a hypothesis and many others related to the patterns and processes behind biodiversity. Our aim was to investigate the patterns of scorpion diversity in the Cuban archipelago,...

The invasive bivalve Mytilopsis sallei caused several economic and ecological impacts in Asia. In Brazil, M. sallei was first reported in 2004, and thus far, little is known about its ecological impact on Brazilian estuaries. The present study aims to evaluate the abundance and distribution of M. sallei and to analyse the environmental factors that...

In this paper, we describe a new subfamily of Gonyleptidae, Paragoniosomatinae subfam. nov., based on a new genus and species, Paragoniosoma cachaceiro gen. nov., sp. nov., found in an upper montane cloud forest of Chapada Diamantina mountains, one of the small interior patches of Atlantic Forest. This discovery suggests that the narrow-restricted...

The montane forests of northeastern Brazil are patches of rainforests, surrounded by xeric vegetation, originated during the expansion of rainforests in the Pleistocene epoch. Their historical processes make these areas ideal for biogeographical investigations of organisms, particularly in groups with low dispersion and habitat specificity, such as...

Habitat selection and seasonal changes are key drivers of the population dynamics of many species. We analyzed how the environmental structure influences species establishment in an area by comparing microhabitat preference and functional richness of scorpions (Arachnida: Scorpiones) in wet (Atlantic forest) and semiarid (Caatinga) areas. Variation...

This study describes variation in ontogenetic development of the parthenogenetic scorpion Tityus stigmurus based on variations in size, intermolt period, and number of instars. Individuals were created under laboratory conditions (28 ± 3ºC) and subjected to similar diet regime. Comparative measurements of carapace, segment V of the metasoma, and th...

Habitat fragmentation is a topic widely studied in ecology; however, its effects on the assemblage of the order Scorpiones is less well understood. Aiming to fill this gap, this study assessed the effect of fragmentation on the assemblage of these arachnids in 12 Brazilian Atlantic forest fragments. Five environmental variables were measured (depth...

Brazilian Atlantic rainforest is one of the largest hotspots of biodiversity in the world, with the highest number of harvestmen (Arachnida: Opiliones) species per given area. Currently, however, information on the species richness or spatial distribution of these arachnids in this northeastern Brazilian biome is extremely scarce. We conducted a fi...

Abstract The concept of areas of endemism (AoEs) has rarely been discussed in the literature, even though the use of methods to ascertain them has recently increased. We introduce a grid-based protocol for delimiting AoEs using alternative criteria for the recognition of AoEs that are empirically tested with harvestmen species distributions in the...

Os autores deste livro e a EDITORA ROCA empenharam seus melhores esforços para assegurar que as informações e os procedimentos apresentados no texto estejam em acordo com os padrões aceitos à época da publicação, e todos os dados foram atualizados pelos autores até a data da entrega dos originais à editora. Adicionalmente, os leitores podem buscar...

The increasing devastation of tropical forests makes it critical to understand the structure of their animal communities. Based on this assumption, we conducted a field study to investigate the microhabitat use of the scorpion community in a montane marsh ('Brejo' formation). During three months, samples were actively collected during the night wit...

APRESENTAÇÃO Este livro é produto do esforço coletivo dos pesquisadores das instituições do Nordeste que participaram ativamente do trabalho de inventário do projeto PPBio Semiárido, assim como de seus estudantes de Iniciação Científica, Pós-graduandos nos níveis de Mestrado e Doutorado, bolsistas do PPBio e colaboradores externos de outras institu...

With the increasing devastation of the tropical rain forest, there is a critical need to understand how animal forest communities are structured and how habitat degradation will affect these communities. We conducted a field survey to investigate the microhabitat preferences of two co-occurring species of scorpions (Tityus pusillus and Ananteris ma...

Rhopalurus rochai (Borelli 1910) is a very common scorpion species found in the semiarid areas of Pernambuco State, Brazil. This work describes the life history traits of 1(st) instar R. rochai such as litter size, development time, dispersal, and survivorship. The development of 2(nd) instar juveniles under different feeding regimens was also inve...