Insectes Sociaux
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00040-020-00804-2
Insectes Sociaux
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Save the survivors: the remarkable ant diversity of the last protected
fragment of savanna in Southern Brazil
A. M. Oliveira1
· R. M. Feitosa1
Received: 20 August 2020 / Revised: 12 November 2020 / Accepted: 2 December 2020
© International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI) 2021
Abstract
The Brazilian savanna (Cerrado biome), now reduced to about 173,500 km2 of its original two million km2 range, is one of
the most threatened biomes in the world. In the meridional limit of this biome is the Cerrado State Park (CSP), state of Paraná, Brazil, the only savanna conservation unit in Southern Brazil. This survey of the arboreal and ground-dwelling ants of
the park obtained 136 species in 36 genera and eight subfamilies, an expressive diversity given the size, degree of isolation
and location of the park. There was a high stratification of the ant community with a dominance of ground-dwelling species.
Camponotus crispulus, Pheidole exigua, and Pheidole scapulata are new records for Southern Brazil. The ponerine genus
Mayaponera and 13 species from several genera are recorded for the first time for the state of Paraná. The great number of
ant species found and the presence of rarely collected elements of the Neotropical ant fauna indicate that this is one of the
most diverse areas of savanna in Brazil. However, the CSP is severely threatened by anthropic activities, such as monocultures, cultivation of exotic plants, and livestock. Even more concerning is a recent new law approved by the government of
Paraná that allows the touristic exploitation of reserves like the CSP by private companies. If an effective conservation effort
to preserve the park area is not taken, we will certainly witness the extinction of the last assembly of ants from the Brazilian
Cerrado in Southern Brazil, along with other elements of the biodiversity associated with the CSP.
Keywords Neotropical region · Formicidae · Conservation · Species list
Introduction
The Brazilian savanna encompasses a diagonal dry region
in the country, including three open vegetation biomes: the
Chaco in the southwest, the Cerrado in the central region,
and the Caatinga in the northeast. These biomes form a diagonal corridor of dry habitats in South America and represent
a biogeographical barrier between two forest biomes, the
Amazon rainforest in the northwest and the Atlantic Forest
in the southeast (Werneck 2011).
Supplementary Information The online version contains
supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s0004
0-020-00804-2.
* A. M. Oliveira
alinemachado.oliver@gmail.com
R. M. Feitosa
rsmfeitosa@gmail.com
1
Departamento de Zoologia, Laboratório de Sistemática
e Biologia de Formigas, Universidade Federal do Paraná
(UFPR), Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
The Cerrado biome, representing the second largest
biome of Brazil after the Amazon Rainforest, originally
encompassed ca. 23% of the Brazilian territory, covering
approximately two million km2 (Bridgewater et al. 2004).
More than half of the Cerrado’s original area in Brazil has
been lost, and only approximately 8.5% (173,500 km2) of
it is under protected areas (MMA 2020). The Cerrado is a
global biodiversity hotspot, with high levels of endemism,
including 44% of the plant species and 10% of the vertebrate
species (Myers et al. 2000). Inventories of invertebrate fauna
are relatively sparse in the Cerrado, but estimates indicate
that there about 90,000 species of insects throughout the
biome (Dias 1991).
The southern limit of the Cerrado in Brazil is in the
northeast portion of the state of Paraná, where this biome
is deeply fragmented, especially due to anthropic activity.
All the remnants and islands of Cerrado in this region are
smaller than 100 km2, not protected by any conservation
unit, and are historically separated from northernmost portions of biome (Maack 2012). The sole conservation area
of Cerrado in Southern Brazil is the Parque Estadual do
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A. M. Oliveira, R. M. Feitosa
Cerrado, hereafter Cerrado State Park (CSP), a 420 ha preserve under sustainable use in the municipalities of Jaguariaíva and Sengés (MMA 2020). Despite the great relevance
of the CSP for the Cerrado biome, few scientific studies have
been conducted there. There have been a few inventories of
insects (Casagrande et al. 2011; Gonçalves et al. 2009; Sari
and Ribeiro-Costa 2011), gastropods (Colley 2011), amphibians (Caramaschii et al. 2009), birds (Straube et al. 2005),
mammals (Vidolin and Braga 2004), and plants (Linsinger
et al. 2006; Uhlmann 1995, Uhlmann et al. 1997, 1998).
Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are an important and
very conspicuous animal group distributed throughout the
world, occurring in most terrestrial ecosystems. Currently,
there are more than 13,850 species distributed in 337 genera
and 17 subfamilies (Bolton 2020). Along with termites, they
are considered the most important group of insects in Brazilian savannas in terms of abundance and ecological impact
(Elizalde et al. 2020; Lach et al. 2010; Silva et al. 2004).
Ants are susceptible to different levels of ecological changes,
climate variations and other disturbances, including those
associated with human activities. These characteristics,
associated with their wide distribution, local abundance,
easy sampling, and good taxonomic resolution makes ants
an excellent model for bioindication studies (Andersen and
Majer 2004; Arnan et al. 2006; Hoffmann 2010; Leal et al.
2012; Majer et al. 1984; Silva et al. 2009; Vasconcelos et al.
2000).
Comprehensive studies have been conducted in the Cerrado, including ant community ecology in conservation
areas (Maravalhas and Vasconcelos 2019; Ribas and Schoereder 2004; Vasconcelos et al. 2018, 2019), urban areas
(Pacheco and Vasconcelos 2006), species lists (Camacho
and Vasconcelos 2015), ant–plant interactions (Dáttilo and
Vasconcelos 2019; Schoereder et al. 2010), and impacts of
the land use on the ant fauna (Queiroz et al. 2017). However,
as far as we know, there are no studies exclusively addressing the ant assemblies of the southern edge of the biome.
The primary aim of this study is to provide a survey of
the arboreal and ground-dwelling ant species of the Cerrado
State Park. Our secondary goal is to reveal the importance
of this isolated and severely threatened area for the conservation of the last Cerrado ant assembly in Southern Brazil.
Materials and methods
Study area
Sampling was carried out in January 2015 at the Cerrado
State Park (CSP) in the municipality of Jaguariaíva, state of
Paraná (Fig. 1). The park has 420 ha and is located 10 km
northeast of the urban perimeter of Jaguariaíva (24° 10′ S
49° 39′ W) (IAP 2002). The sampling was carried out at the
13
most typical savanna physiognomy in this region, the Cerrado sensu stricto, which is composed of an open canopy of
3–8 m tall trees, grasses, herbs, and shrubs (Oliveira-Filho
and Ratter 2002). The climate of the CSP is warm, with
significant rainfall throughout the year. The driest month is
August, with an average precipitation of 59 mm, whereas the
wettest month is January (205 mm precipitation on average).
The hottest month is February (23 °C average) while June
is the coldest month (12 °C average). The climate is Cfa
(humid temperate climate with hot summer) according to
the Köppen–Geiger climate classification. Climate information was obtained by Climate-Date.org, licensed by Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.
Ant sampling
We established three 380 m transects, separated from each
other by 1 km. Along each transect, we marked 20 sampling points, spaced by 20 m. The points were alternated to
sample the ground-dwelling ants on the soil surface and the
arboreal ants on the trees, totaling 60 samples, 30 on soil
and 30 arboreal. In both strata, we used pitfall traps, which
consisted of a small plastic cup of 250 ml, 8.5 cm high, and
7.8 cm in diameter. To collect the ground-dwelling ants, four
pitfall traps containing water and detergent were arranged
in the soil in a square grid of 2.5 m × 2.5 m. In the arboreal
stratum, four pitfall traps, containing human urine diluted
1:2 in water and detergent, which is a highly attractive bait
for arboreal ants (Powell et al. 2011), were fixed on the trees
at approximately 2.5 m high.
The pitfall traps remained installed for 48 h; after that, the
contents of the four pitfalls in each point were combined into
a single plastic bag, making up a single composite sample.
The sampling method follows Vasconcelos et al. (2014).
Data processing
The samples were transported to the Laboratório de Sistemática e Biologia de Formigas at Universidade Federal do
Paraná (UFPR), Curitiba, Brazil, where the collected ants
were sorted, mounted, and identified to species whenever
possible. Ants were firstly identified to genus using the Guia
para os Gêneros de Formigas do Brasil (Baccaro et al. 2015)
and the literature recommended therein for the identification
of the species in each genus (Albuquerque 2014; Brandão
and Mayhé-Nunes 2001; Camacho et al. 2020; De Andrade
and Baroni Urbani 1999; Feitosa 2011; Ješovnik and Schultz
2017; Kugler 1994; Kugler and Brown 1982; Longino 2003;
Longino and Fernández 2007; Ortiz-Sepulveda et al. 2019;
Schmidt and Shattuck 2014; Ward 1990; Watkins 1976;
Wild 2017). Ant specialists were also consulted (see the
“Acknowledgments” section). Voucher specimens were
Save the survivors: the remarkable ant diversity of the last protected fragment of savanna in…
Fig. 1 a Map of Brazil, showing the original distribution of the Cerrado (gray) and the current conservation areas (green), with emphasis on
state of Paraná (black square). b Map of Paraná, with the Cerrado State Park location (square green). c Cerrado State Park area
deposited at the Entomological Collection Padre Jesus Santiago Moure (DZUP) at UFPR, Curitiba, Brazil.
The collected species were separated by habitat affinity,
into “savanna specialists”, “forest-associated” and “habitat
generalists”, based on Vasconcelos et al. (2018). In addition, we classified the species collected by strata preference, using exclusively the occurrence on the pitfalls as: (1)
“ground-dwellers”, considering those collected exclusively
on the ground, and those collected predominantly on the
ground and only eventually from a single vegetation point;
(2) “arboreal”, using the same criteria that for “grounddwellers”, including species that were collected from one
or more points on the ground, but are well-known arboreal
ants; and (3) “strata generalist”, those species consistently
collected from both strata.
We estimated the species’ richness of the CSP based on
their frequency of occurrence, using two richness estimators:
“Jackknife2”, based on the number of species that occur in
two samples, and “Bootstrap”, based on all species collected
to estimate total richness, thus not influenced by the infrequent species (Chao et al. 2005; Magurran 2004). We also
analyzed the sampling effort by plotting the number of species collected and the number of samples on species-accumulation curves for the total survey and for each stratum,
which rises steeply at first and then more rises more slowly
increasingly rare species are added (Ugland et al. 2003). The
dataset used for these analyses (presence-absence matrix) is
available as Supplementary Information and deposited in
FigShare (Oliveira and Feitosa 2020).
The map in Fig. 1 was generated in QGis v. 3.2.3, the
shapefiles were obtained from the Brazilian Institute of
Geography and Statistics database—IBGE, and from Google
Earth Pro v. 7.3.3.7786. Richness estimators and speciesaccumulation curves were performed in the R environment,
using the package Vegan (R Core Team 2020; Oksanen et al.
2019). Images of Fig. 2 were obtained with a Zeiss Stereo
DiscoveryV20 stereomicroscope attached to a Zeiss Axiocam 305 color video camera. Graphs in figures S1 and S2
were performed on Microsoft Excel. All figures were edited
in Photoshop CS6 (Adobe) to enhance parameters of brightness and contrast.
Results
We recorded 136 ant species at the Cerrado State Park
(CSP). In relation to the sampling method, 120 species
were captured in ground pitfalls, and 45 in arboreal pitfalls
13
A. M. Oliveira, R. M. Feitosa
Fig. 2 Frontal and lateral
view of a Cyatta abscondita,
b Mycetagroicus cerradensis
and c Mycetarotes senticosus.
The three species are rarely
collected savanna-specialist ants
recorded in the Cerrado State
Park, Paraná, Brazil
(Table S1). From these, 91 species were exclusively collected in the ground, 16 were exclusively collected on the
trees, and 29 were collected in both strata. In relation to
strata preference, we considered 101 (74.2%) as “grounddwellers”, 22 species (16.2%) as “arboreal”, and 13 species
(9.6%) as “strata generalists” (Fig. S1). The most abundant
species in ground samples were Pheidole oxyops, Linepithema micans and Wasmannia auropunctata (Roger, 1863);
whereas on the vegetation samples, the most abundant species were Pseudomyrmex gracilis (Fabricius, 1804), Camponotus novogranadensis, Camponotus atriceps (Smith,
1858) and Cephalotes pusillus (Klug, 1824) (Fig. S2). We
were able to identify 73 species (54%), which were classified
13
by habitat affinity. From these, 47 (64.3%) are habitat generalists, 12 (16.7%) are savanna specialists, and 14 (19%)
forest-associated species (Table S1).
The 136 species sampled at CSP comprise 36 ant genera, and eight subfamilies (Table 1). More than 90% of the
species collected belong to three subfamilies: Myrmicinae, with 89 species (65.4%); Formicinae, with 23 species
(17%); and Ponerinae, with 10 species (7.3% of the total).
The four most diverse genera, representing more than 54%
of the collected species, were: Pheidole, with 34 species
(25%); Solenopsis, with 17 species (12.5%); Camponotus,
with 15 species (11%); and Crematogaster, with eight species (5.8%). The most common species, collected in 38 of
Save the survivors: the remarkable ant diversity of the last protected fragment of savanna in…
Table 1 Number of genera and species recorded by subfamily at the
Cerrado State Park (CSP)
Subfamily
Genera
Species
Myrmicinae
Formicinae
Ponerinae
Pseudomyrmecinae
Dolichoderinae
Ectatomminae
Dorylinae
Heteroponerinae
Total
20
4
5
1
2
2
1
1
36
89
23
10
6
3
3
1
1
136
the 60 samples, was Camponotus novogranadensis Mayr,
1870, followed by Brachymyrmex pictus Mayr, 1887, Linepithema micans (Forel, 1908), and Pheidole oxyops Forel,
1908 all collected in 29 samples.
The formicine species Camponotus crispulus Santschi,
1922 and the myrmicine species Pheidole exigua Mayr,
1884 and Pheidole scapulata Santschi, 1923, are recorded
for Southern Brazil for the first time. In addition, the genus
Mayaponera and 13 species were recorded for the first time
from the state of Paraná: Brachymyrmex fiebrigi Forel, 1908,
Brachymyrmex pictus, Camponotus zenon Forel, 1912, and
Myrmelachista nodigera Mayr, 1887 (Formicinae); Cephalotes depressus (Klug, 1824), Crematogaster erecta Mayr,
1866, Mycetarotes senticosus Kempf, 1960, Nesomyrmex
spininodis (Mayr, 1887), Pheidole aper Forel, 1912, Rogeria
pellecta Kempf, 1963 and Wasmannia sigmoidea (Mayr,
1884) (Myrmicinae); Ectatomma tuberculatum (Oliver,
1792) (Ectatomminae); and Mayaponera constricta (Mayr,
1884) (Ponerinae).
The richness estimators predicted a tendency towards an
increase in species richness if more samples were sampled.
Bootstrap estimated 151 species, and Jackknife2 188 species. According to the estimators, the 136 species collected
represent, respectively, 90%, and 72% of the expected species richness for ants in the CSP. The species-accumulation
curve for the total survey shows a tendency to an asymptote,
while the curves for each stratum separately shows that the
ground-dweller community tends to reach the asymptote
faster than the arboreal community (Fig. S3).
Discussion
In this study, we reveal an impressive diversity of ants in
the Cerrado State Park by conducting the first comprehensive inventory for the park. Besides the high richness found
(136 species), the CSP draws attention for the presence of
rarely collected and typically savanna-specialist species,
like the fungus-farming ants Cyatta abscondita Sosa-Calvo
et al. 2013, Mycetagroicus cerradensis Brandão & MayhéNunes, 2001, and Mycetarotes senticosus (Fig. 2). Considering Southern Brazil (which includes the states of Paraná,
Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul), C. abscondita and
M. cerradensis are only found in the CSP, according to the
literature (Brandão and Mayhé-Nunes 2001; Oliveira et al.
2016). Mycetarotes senticosus, although rarely found in scattered localities of southeastern Brazil (Mayhé-Nunes and
Brandão 2006), is recorded for the state of Paraná for the
first time in this study.
In addition, other biogeographically remarkable species
were collected at the CSP, namely the rarely collected myrmicine species Rogeria pellecta, known only by two sampling events, in the states of Santa Catarina (Southern Brazil) and São Paulo (Southeastern Brazil); Pheidole breviseta
Santschi, 1919, restricted to Argentina and Southern Brazil;
and three species first recorded for Southern Brazil, Camponotus crispulus, Pheidole exigua, and Pheidole scapulata
(Guénard et al. 2017; Janicki et al. 2016, available in https
://antmaps.org/). Camponotus crispulus was known from
Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. In Brazil, the only record
known is for the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (Midwest
region). Here, we extended its distribution in 600 km east.
Pheidole exigua was known from forest habitats in Central
America and north of South America, reaching Bolivia in
its southernmost distribution. Now, the southern limit for its
distribution is CSP, 1500 km southeast of the previous nearest record and includes the Cerrado biome. Finally, Pheidole
scapulata has been recorded from Paraguay and Argentina;
in Brazil, the only record known is for the state of Minas
Gerais (Southeastern Brazil). Here, we expand its distribution in Brazil by 600 km to the south (Guénard et al. 2017;
Janicki et al. 2016, available in https://antmaps.org/).
Of the 63 species for which we were not able to attribute
a name (morphospecies), more than 57% (36 morphospecies) belong to the myrmicine genera Pheidole and Solenopsis. This high level of unidentified species is due to the
taxonomic status of these genera, since both are widely
distributed, morphologically challenging, and species-rich,
with 1161 and 194 extant species described, respectively.
However, many morphospecies of Pheidole recorded here
are new species in the process of being described (Alexandre
Casadei-Ferreira, pers. comm.). This fact, along with the
elevated number of new records for the state (13 species)
and for Southern Brazil (three species), is evidence of the
potential of the CSP to reveal taxonomic novelties.
The elevated number of habitat generalist and forest-associated species was somewhat expected, due to the relatively
recent geologic origin of the Brazilian savanna, during the
tertiary and the quaternary periods (about 10 mya) (Pinheiro
and Monteiro 2010; Vasconcelos et al. 2018). Compared
to different arid ecosystems in the world, the Neotropical
13
A. M. Oliveira, R. M. Feitosa
savanna presents relatively few arid-adapted ant species and
the species composition is probably derived from an ancient
species pool that inhabited forested habitats (Branstetter
et al. 2017; Leal et al. 2017; Vasconcelos et al. 2018; Price
et al. 2014, 2016).
We found a considerable ant fauna stratification at the
CSP, with only 7.3% of the species collected in both soil
and vegetation strata, while almost 76% of the species are
ground-dwellers and 17% were arboreal (Fig. S1). This high
level of stratification is also reflected in the faunal composition, since the most common species on the ground do not
occur on the trees, and vice versa (Fig. S2). These results are
congruent with other studies in tropical savannas and forests
(Brühl et al. 1998; Rodrigues et al. 2019; Vasconcelos et al.
2019). According to Campos et al. (2008) the great number
of ground species may be due to the physiognomy of the
Cerrado, where there is no interconnection between treetops, making the arboreal habit less complex and precluding easy dispersion and colonization of this environment as
opposed to the ground. In addition, Camarota et al. (2016)
have shown that interspecific competition is more influential
than habitat structure on distribution pattern in arboreal ants
in Neotropical Savannas. The vertical stratification induces
the adapted fauna to exploit different types of resources,
thus reducing competition and increasing the number of species that can co-exist in the same place, even in small areas,
as the CSP (Campos et al. 2008). It is known that grounddwelling ants are also more common than arboreal ants in
forests (Brühl et al. 1998). This is directly associated with
the greater complexity of the ground in forested environments, which is usually characterized by a well-developed
leaf-litter layer that provides several microhabitats for ant
foraging and nesting (Barroso et al. 2020).
Comparing the ant richness found in this study with other
studies that applied a similar sampling protocol (a total of 29
localities of Cerrado sampled by Vasconcelos et al. (2018,
2019) and Maravalhas and Vasconcelos (2019) throughout the entire biome), the CSP is the third richest area of
Cerrado in Brazil. The first is a legal reserve of 158 ha in
Patrocínio (state of Minas Gerais) and the second is a legal
reserve of 114 ha in Nova Xavantina (state of Mato Grosso),
both with 144 species. In a local scale, the CSP can be considered the richest area of Cerrado, with an average of 23
species per sampling point, followed by Nova Xavantina
and Patrocínio, with 20 and 14 species per sampling point,
respectively (Maravalhas and Vasconcelos 2019). Also, the
number of species collected in a single sampling point (singletons) in the CSP is the second highest in the Brazilian
savannas, along with Patrocínio, both with 12 species, after
a legal reserve in São Carlos, state of São Paulo, southeastern Brazil, with 19 singletons species. On the other hand,
a comparison of the ant richness of the CSP with another
Cerrado location that is similar in size but more exhaustively
13
sampled, suggests that the richness of the CPS may have
been underestimated. The Panga Ecological Station (PES)
is a 402 ha Cerrado reserve in the state of Minas Gerais, in
the heart of the Brazilian Cerrado. Camacho and Vasconcelos (2015) presented a list of ant species for the PES based
on ten different studies conducted for nine years, using different sampling methods. As a result, the authors recorded
277 species in the PES. Considering that our study is the
first ant comprehensive inventory for the CSP, in which we
employed a single collection method (pitfall traps in soil and
vegetation), the 136 ant species recorded here can be considered an expressive sampling. In this sense, an increase in
sampling effort associated with the use of different methods
in distinct seasons of the year could reveal an even greater
ant diversity for CSP. Furthermore, the richness estimators
used here showed that we have not collected between 14
and 52 of the species potentially occurring at CSP, and the
species-accumulation curves has not reached an asymptote.
Therefore, this first sampling effort was an important step to
access the ant fauna of the park, but more surveys are needed
to reveal the complete local ant diversity.
This high ant diversity in the southernmost areas of the
biome, and especially at the CSP, can be explained mainly
by the location of the park at a high latitude (− 24.1785).
This is because the diversity of ant fauna in the Cerrado is
directly correlated with higher latitudes, which determine
a heavier rainfall during the warmest months of the year
and increased plant productivity (Vasconcelos et al. 2018).
However, when we compare the species richness of CSP and
Águas de Santa Barbara, the second higher latitude between
localities sampled by Vasconcelos et al. (2018, 2019), the
richness found in the latter is significantly lower than CSP,
with 103 ant species. Thus, besides latitude, the ant species
pool of the CSP may be strongly influenced by other ecosystems known to occur in Southern Brazil, as the natural
grasslands and Araucaria angustifolia forests (Ketterl et al.
2013; Maack 2012; Franco and Feitosa 2018).
The Cerrado State Park, along with other Cerrado fragments in Paraná, is considered a relict of the quaternary
period, when the savanic formations originated and started
to expand throughout the Neotropical region (Pinheiro and
Monteiro 2010; Maack 2012). Thus, these fragments are historically separated from the central portion of the Cerrado in
Brazil (Maack 2012). This fragmentation and isolation processes may have influenced the local and regional patterns
of diversity, including loss of unique microhabitats, changes
in dispersion and migration patterns, and the appearance of
barrier effects (Aguiar et al. 2016; Fernández et al. 2019).
All these factors may lead to the local loss of several species,
many of which are not formally described and thus are not
known to science.
Besides being a conservation area, the CSP is an island of
natural vegetation in the middle of a region severely marked
Save the survivors: the remarkable ant diversity of the last protected fragment of savanna in…
by anthropic activity. The park is completely surrounded
by farms, most of which practice monocultures (soybean,
corn, wheat, and oats) (Fig. 1c). Those crops require extensive use of pesticides, which are able to reach areas of the
park and cause important damage to native species. In addition, there are planted areas of exotic species for logging
(Pinus and Eucalyptus). These species are able to invade the
park area through wind dispersion. Without proper control,
these invasive plants can rapidly suppress native species, and
consequently affect the ant fauna. Finally, livestock rearing,
especially cattle, in the surrounding farms, causes deforestation of Cerrado remnants adjacent to the park (IAP 2002).
More recently, in 2019, the legislative assembly of the
state of Paraná approved law number 19.913, which allows
private companies to explore areas destined for public use
in conservation units of the state, including the CSP. In fact,
in 2020, an important conservation unity in the state, the
Vila Velha State Park, became the first park to suffer the
effects of this law and has been explored for ecotourism
and related activities since then. After that, Iguaçu National
Park, one of the most important protected areas of Atlantic Forest in Brazil, located at the western limit of state of
Paraná, also started being exploited by a private company.
The inappropriate use of these conservation areas by private
companies may promote an accelerated loss of native ecosystems and their associated biodiversity. This is concerning
when we consider that the current Brazilian Federal government is openly promoting and enhancing the deforestation
and illegal exploitation of natural areas in Brazil by drastically reducing the number of environmental inspectors and
slashing the funds for research and development (Thomé
and Haddad 2019). The government of the state of Parana
is going against environmental protection guidelines by not
implementing protective measures and also by handing over
the few existing preservation areas to be exploited by private
companies. The conservation efforts at the state, national,
and international levels are fundamental to the preservation
of the Cerrado, and its unique biodiversity (Françoso et al.
2019; Rosa 2020).
Studies in the Cerrado have shown that fragments located
at the southern portions of the biome, specifically in the
states of Paraná and São Paulo, are potentially suitable for
faunal displacement in climate change scenarios (Aguiar
et al. 2016; Marini et al. 2009; Siqueira and Peterson 2003).
This highlights the importance of ensuring the preservation
of the original vegetation of the CSP, which can be a refuge
for many species in short to long terms.
Cerrado fragments in the Brazilian Southeast and South
are the most fragmented and degraded by man, and the least
protected by conservation measures (Aguiar et al. 2016;
Françoso et al. 2019). In the 1990s and 2000s, the Brazilian
Cerrado lost 0.6% of its natural vegetation annually, which
represents 1700 ha per day, due to livestock and intensive
agriculture expansion (Françoso et al. 2019). This makes the
creation of conservation unities essential and urgent, especially in the southern portions of the Cerrado. Additionally,
ecological corridors need to be created to increase a connectivity between the fragmented areas of the South, including
public and private protected unities, to preserve the fauna of
the Cerrado (Aguiar et al. 2016; Rosa 2020).
Conclusion
Here, we recorded 136 species for the Cerrado State Park,
the only and extremely threatened fragment of savanna in
Southern Brazil. We present 13 new records for the state of
Paraná and three new records for the South region. In addition to records of three rarely collected and typical savannaspecialist species. The CSP is the fourth most diverse area
of savanna in Brazil.
The southern fragments of Cerrado are potentially suitable areas which could be used as a refuge to the specialized
fauna in light of climate changes, favoring the maintenance
of the biodiversity of the savanna biome in Brazil. However,
the CSP is severely threatened by anthropic activity and is
surrounded by farms that practice monoculture, logging of
exotic species, and livestock. Additionally, it is threatened by
the recently approved law in the state of Paraná that allows
the exploitation of conservation areas by tourist companies.
This study draws attention to the importance of preserving the CPS, an isolated but highly important fragment of
savanna in Southern Brazil with an enormous biological
value, including a considerable ant diversity and several
rarely collected and ecologically important species. Our
results show that even relatively small fragments may hold
levels of biodiversity comparable to those of much larger
areas and therefore deserve more visibility, research effort,
and effective conservation policies.
Acknowledgments We thank Heraldo Vasconcelos and Jonas Maravalhas for the support during fieldwork. Thanks to Alexandre CasadeiFerreira, Jill Oberski, Lina María Pedraza, Mayron Escárraga, Otávio
Guilherme Moraes, Philip S. Ward, Rodolfo Probst, and Thiago Ranzani da Silva for identifying our species of Pheidole, Dorymyrmex,
Crematogaster, Linepithema, Rogeria, Pseudomyrmex, Myrmelachista
and Strumigenys, respectively. Gabriela Camacho, Jonas Maravalhas,
and two anonymous reviewers made invaluable comments and suggestions on a previous version of this manuscript. This work was supported by the Brazilian Council of Research and Scientific Development (CNPq Grants 457407/2012-3 and 459353/2014-4).
13
A. M. Oliveira, R. M. Feitosa
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