Andrés F. Sánchez Restrepo

• PhD in Biological Sciences
• Researcher at Fundación Para El Estudio De Especies Invasivas

Aim The existence of past connections between different regions through corridors has influenced the diversification of the biota in South America. Evidence of such connections in southern South America is scarce and poorly understood. As a model to analyse the existence of these corridors we study the evolutionary history of a widely distributed...

With a long history of more than 100 million years and about 14,000 described living species, ants are one of the most important and well-known groups of insects in the world. Ants are key elements in the structure and dynamics of terrestrial systems, especially in the tropics, as well as models in studies of evolution, ecology, and monitoring of d...

South American fire ant decapitating flies in the genus Pseudacteon (Diptera: Phoridae) are potential biocontrol agents of the invasive fire ants Solenopsis invicta and S. richteri in the United States and other regions of the world due to their high host specificity and the direct and indirect damage to their host ants. Despite their importance an...

Leaf-cutting ants (LCA) are considered one of the main herbivores and one of the most destructive pest insects of the Neotropics. Northeastern Argentina harbors the greatest species richness of these ants and in turn comprises the highest surface with forest plantations. Our aim was to establish which species of leaf-cutting ants are most commonly...

In the search for specific natural enemies to control two invasive aquatic plants (IAP) from South America, Ludwigia grandiflora subsp. hexapetala (Onagraceae) and Myriophyllum aquaticum (Haloragaceae), taxonomic challenges associated with two Lysathia Bechyné, 1959 (Chrysomelidae; Alticini) species had to be resolved. Lysathia flavipes (Boheman, 1...

been conducted to determine its ecological niche with respect to A. philoxeroides. The aim of this study is to predict the environmental niches of A. andersoni and A. hygrophila and their overlap with that of A. philox-eroides in the North and South America under current and future climate scenarios. Accordingly, niche models were constructed in Ma...

Leaf‐cutting ants (LCA) are one of the most important pests in the Neotropics region. To estimate the potential biomass consumption by LCA on Salicaceae plantations in the lower delta of the Paraná River, we studied the foraging activity and harvesting patterns of Acromyrmex lundii (Guérin‐Méneville, 1838) and Acromyrmex ambiguus (Emery, 1888) (Hym...

Ecological niche models of species occurrence have gained interest in biological control programs to improve efficiency, reduce risks, and to inform when and how control agents may be released and/or surveyed. Alligator weed, Alternanthera philoxeroides (Mart.) Griseb. (Amaranthaceae), is an amphibious aquatic plant native to southern South America...

Hypogeococcus pungens is a species complex native to southern South America that is composed of at least five putative species, each one specialized in the use of different host plants. Two of these undescribed species were registered as invasive in Central and North America: Hyp-C is a cactophagous mealybug that became an important pest that threa...

Ants, an ecologically successful and numerically dominant group of animals, play key ecological roles as soil engineers, predators, nutrient recyclers, and regulators of plant growth and reproduction in most terrestrial ecosystems. Further, ants are widely used as bioindicators of the ecological impact of land use. We gathered information of ant sp...

Chromosomal inversions are known to play roles in adaptation and differentiation in many species. They involve clusters of correlated genes (i.e loci in linkage disequilibrium, LD) possibly associated with environmental variables. The grasshopper “species complex” Trimerotropis pallidipennis comprises several genetic lineages distributed from North...

1. Understanding the spatial distribution of species sheds light on the biogeographical history, offers clues to the drivers of biodiversity and helps guide conservation strategies. In southern South America, Andean, Chaco and Atlantic forests drastically decreased their coverage in the last decades mainly by changes in land use. 2. Ants represent...

Leaf-cutting ants are considered the most important herbivores in terrestrial environments throughout the Neotropics. Amoimyrmex Cristiano, Cardoso, & Sandoval, 2020 is the sister clade of the remaining leaf-cutting ants from the genera Atta and Acromyrmex. Amoimyrmex striatus was the only species cytogenetically studied within the genus and shares...

Chromosomal inversions play a role in the adaptation and diversification of different systems, mainly due to supergenes resulting from recombination suppression. Supergenes are “clusters” of genes in linkage disequilibrium (LD) whose frequencies may be associated with environmental variables. The grasshopper “species complex” Trimerotropis pallidip...

Hedychium coronarium (Zingiberales: Zingiberaceae), native to the Himalayas and southern China, has become an environmental weed in many countries around the world. Reported in several provinces of Argentina, H. coronarium constitutes a serious environmental problem especially in the wetlands of natural areas of Misiones Province, such as the Iguaz...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236086.].

1 The most commonly used method to control insect pests, such as leaf-cutting ants (LCA) in forest plantations, is the application of chemical insecticides, but their use was forbidden in plantations certified by the Forest Stewardship Council because of their negative effect on the environment. 2 A 5-year derogation of their prohibition was obtain...

Three species of the sawfly genus Heteroperreyia Schrottky are now known to feed on Schinus spp. (Anacardiaceae): H. jorgenseni (Jörgensen), H. hubrichi Malaise, and H. kava Smith, n. sp. All occur from southeastern Brazil to northeastern Argentina. The species separation is supported by the description, illustrations, and genetic differences inclu...

Se presenta un listado de las especies de hormigas del género Cephalotes Latreille y su distribución geográfica en Colombia. Para recopilar la información se revisaron 18 colecciones entomológicas de diferentes universidades e institutos de investigación del país, se registraron los datos de colección de 4736 especímenes y se identificaron hasta es...

Colombia is a country with a high diversity of ants; however, several new taxa are still being reported for the country. Forty seven new records for the country are registered here, all in the subfamily Myrmicinae: one new species record for the genera Adelomyrmex, Allomerus, Kempfidris, Megalomyrmex, Octostruma and Tranopelta; two for Rogeria; f...

The southern black ant, Acromyrmex lobicornis, is a species of leaf-cutting ant with a wide distribution in southern South America. Mostly distributed in Argentina, it's range extends from southern Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay to the province of Chubut in Patagonia, and it is apparently in the process of a southwestern expansion into Chile. It's ad...

Las hormigas cortadoras de hojas (HCH) son una de las principales plagas forestales debido a los daños ocasionados por defoliación en los primeros dos años de la plantación. El Bajo Delta del Río Paraná posee grandes extensiones de plantaciones de sauces que son mayormente atacadas por la HCH Acromyrmex lundii. Pese a la importancia de las HCH como...

The presence of the recently described fungus-farming ant genus and species Cyatta abscondita is reported in the northwestern region of Misiones Province in Argentina. A single worker of C. abscondita was collected in a pitfall trap in a mature plantation of Pinus taeda in the Atlantic Forest biome. This finding expands the distribution of the genu...

The genus Mycetarotes is a fungus-growing ant (Formicidae: Myrmicinae: Attini) mostly recorded south of the Amazon: in southeastern Brazil, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. Here we report the first record of this genus in Colombia: M. parallelus (Emery, 1906). We collected the specimen using pitfall taps in oil palm plantations. The discovery of t...

The first step to estimate the post-mortem interval is the identification of species of insects found on carcasses. Blowflies are an important portion of the insect species in forensic researches. Here, we evaluated the succession of blowfly species associated with pig carcasses (Sus scrofa) on pastures of Cogua (Cundinamarca). The blowflies were c...

La identificación de especies de insectos encontradas en cadáveres es el primer paso que la entomología forense tiene en cuenta en la estimación del intervalo post-morten. Los Calliphoridae constituyen una porción importante de las especies de insectos presentes en investigaciones forenses. Este estudio evaluó la sucesión de especies de califóridos...

Oil palm agriculture is rapidly expanding in the Neotropics, at the expense of a range of natural and seminatural habitats. A key question is how this expansion should be managed to reduce negative impacts on biodiversity. Focusing on the Llanos of Colombia, a mixed grassland–forest system identified as a priority zone for future oil palm developme...

Se comparó la riqueza y composición de especies de hormigas en la comunidad indígena Monifue-Amena (Leticia, Amazonas - Colombia) en dos unidades de vegetación: Bosque de Tierra Firme (BTF) y Várzea, durante cuatro años. Se realizaron cuatro muestreos en época seca y cuatro en lluviosa, empleando trampas Pitfall, Corner, Winkler, Zarandeo y colecta...