Thiago S. R. Silva

Federal University of Paraná | UFPR · Department of Zoology

This article examines narratives of environmental injustice through representations of settler colonialism and resource exploitation in the digital game Chrono Cross , as a case study to demonstrate how narratives of environmental crisis can be mobilized by developers to raise awareness on how resource exploitation can be harmful in a manifold of w...

Taxonomists’ efforts throughout history provide significant amount of data that give support for establishing the specific identity of several groups of biological systems. In addition to identifying species, taxonomic research offers a wide range of biological information that can be used in other disciplines, e.g. evolution, ecology, integrated p...

Leptogenys is the most diverse genus of the ant subfamily Ponerinae and is widely distributed across the world’s tropical and subtropical regions. More than 40 species are known from the Oriental realm displaying a wide range of ecologies, although their life history traits remain poorly understood, and new species are frequently discovered. Here,...

Species of the ant genus Nylanderia constitute some of the most common ground dwelling Formicinae in tropical and subtropical areas. The genus includes numerous species introduced into new regions, especially within urban or disturbed environments. Here, we review the Nylanderia species found within Hong Kong and Macao, which are both highly urbani...

The present work provides a logical account for translating fundamental concepts in the study of social insects to bio-ontologies, namely ‘colony’ and ‘caste’, which can be used by researchers for describing and organizing entities belonging to nonhuman societies, as well as for the provision of evidential criteria for evaluating cumulative-constit...

Research findings in natural sciences need to be comparable and reproducible to effectively improve our understanding of ecological and behavioural patterns. In this sense, knowledge frontiers in biodiversity studies are directly tied to taxonomic research, especially in species-rich tropical regions. Here we analysed the taxonomic information avai...

Despite the historical efforts to list and organize the taxonomic knowledge about the Brazilian ant fauna, the most diverse in the world, several gaps regarding species distribution data and sampling coverage persist. In an attempt to fill some of these gaps, we here apply a scientometric approach to provide an updated overview of the ants of Brazi...

In 1887, Mayr described four species of the ant genus Strumigenys collected in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina: Strumigenys unidentata, Strumigenys subedentata, Strumigenys denticulata, and Strumigenys crassicornis. All of them were described based on a series of one to several specimens, without designation of a holotype, as usual at that ti...

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...

The evolution of eusociality has led to considerable changes in the general hymenopteran body plan. In particular, the evolution of reproductive division of labour caused the worker caste to be largely freed from the demands involved in reproduction. As a consequence, workers were able to evolve highly specialized morphologies for foraging and colo...

The evolution of eusociality led to severe changes in the general hymenopteran body plan. In particular, the evolution of reproductive division of labour caused the worker caste to be largely freed from the demands involved in reproduction. As a consequence, workers were able to evolve highly specialized morphologies for foraging and colony mainten...

Eucharitid wasps are exclusive parasitoids of ants and certain groups of eucharitids have specific associations with their hosts. This type of specificity is widely documented in more inclusive groups (subfamilies and/or genus-groups). However, we do not know if this specificity occurs in less inclusive groups (such as species or populations) or if...

The state of Maranhão, located in northeastern Brazil, comprises three biomes: Amazonian, Caatinga, and the Cerrado. To date, 99 ant species have been recorded in the literature from the state. In the present work, we provide for the first time a profile of the ant fauna in the state based on data from the historical literature and Brazilian instit...

The current work provides a revised and updated key to the genera of Eucharitidae occurring in the New World, with the major traits of genera illustrated through high-resolution photomicrography. We provide an annotated list of genera and species currently known from Brazil, with a new record for a genus previously unknown for the country. Additi...

Our knowledge of the processes related to the expression of distinct phenotypes in ants has significantly increased in the past few years. However, myrmecologists still face significant difficulties while addressing distinct patterns related to reproductive biology in ants. In the present work, we provide a theoretical discussion on the current lim...

O gênero Strumigenys atualmente compreende cerca de 840 espécies descritas, distribuídas em todo o mundo, com a maior parte de sua diversidade encontrada nos trópicos. Na região Neotropical, quase 200 espécies são conhecidas atualmente. É reconhecido como um gênero com alta diversidade morfológica, refletindo uma extrema reclassificação genérica qu...

The female of Colocharis hungi Torréns (Hymenoptera: Eucharitidae) is newly described, detailing the characters that distinguish this species. In addition, we provide images and comments for C. hungi, diagnoses for all species of Colocharis Heraty, a key to species, and a distribution map for the species.

We report finding Strumigenys thaxteri Wheeler in the Amazonian foothills of southeastern Ecuador, over 2000 km to the west of previously known records for the species in Trinidad and Guyana. Field observations suggest it is a sit and wait ambush predator that captures insects that alight on the vegetation upon which they position themselves. Once...

Soil ecosystems are considered biodiversity hotspots. Most of terrestrial organisms depend almost exclusively on soils at least during some part of their life cycle. Although there is an intensive effort to understand the dynamics involving communities of soil animals, most groups are unappreciated in faunal inventories, such as some parasitic Hyme...

Strumigenys fairchildi Brown, 1961 is recorded for the first time in Brazil. This ant species was previously known only from a few specimens collected in Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador. The worker S. fairchildi was collected at the Parque Estadual do Cristalino, a continuous area of Amazon tropical rain forest protected for biodiversity conservatio...

The first checklist of genera of Hymenoptera from Espírito Santo state, Brazil is presented. A total of 973 genera of Hymenoptera is listed, of which 555 (57%) are recorded for the first time from this state. Ichneumonoidea and Chalcidoidea are the two superfamilies with the most genera, 241 and 203 respectively. Braconidae, with 141 genera, are th...

In the present study I estimated the number of Dacetini species that might occur in the Atlantic Forest leaf-litter, under the project Riqueza e diversidade de Hymenoptera e Isoptera ao longo de um gradiente latitudinal na Mata Atlântica - a floresta pluvial do leste do Brasil, from the Biota/FAPESP (# 98/05083-0) program. I identified each taxonom...

Variants of gynes and workers occur in a substantial number of ant species; however, dacetine ergatoid gynes have been recorded just once in the literature thus far. In the present paper, we provide abridged descriptions of five ergatoid female reproductives in five species of Neotropical dacetines belonging to two genera: Acanthognathus brevicorni...

As formigas são muito utilizadas como modelo para o entendimento da dinâmica de comunidades em solo, assim como indicadores de impacto humano. Nas regiões tropicais, as formigas formam um grupo dominante dentre os milhares terrestres graças à sua onipresença, à biomassa que eles representam e ao seu impacto sobre os outros seres vivos. O presen...