Browsing by Author "Aguiar, Carlos A. S."
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- Spatial distribution of Madeira Island Laurisilva endemic spiders (Arachnida: Araneae)Publication . Crespo, Luís C.; Boieiro, Mário; Cardoso, Pedro; Aguiar, Carlos A. S.; Amorim, Isabel R.; Barrinha, Carla; Borges, Paulo A. V.; Menezes, Dilia; Pereira, Fernando E. A.; Rego, Carla; Ribeiro, Sérvio P.; Silva, Israel F.; Serrano, Artur R. M.Madeira island presents a unique spider diversity with a high number of endemic species, many of which are still poorly known. A recent biodiversity survey on the terrestrial arthropods of the native forest, Laurisilva, provided a large set of standardized samples from various patches throughout the island. Out of the fifty two species recorded, approximately 33.3% are Madeiran endemics, many of which had not been collected since their original description. Two new species to science are reported – Ceratinopsis n. sp. and Theridion n. sp. – and the first records of Poeciloneta variegata (Blackwall, 1841) and Tetragnatha intermedia Kulczynski, 1891 are reported for the first time for Madeira island. Considerations on species richness and abundance from different Laurisilva locations are presented, together with distribution maps for endemic species. These results contribute to a better understanding of spider diversity patterns and endemic species distribution in the native forest of Madeira island.
- Spatial Factors Play a Major Role as Determinants of Endemic Ground Beetle Beta Diversity of Madeira Island LaurisilvaPublication . Boieiro, Mário; Carvalho, José C.; Cardoso, Pedro; Aguiar, Carlos A. S.; Rego, Carla; de Faria e Silva, Israel; Amorim, Isabel R.; Pereira, Fernando E. A. P.; Azevedo, Eduardo B.; Borges, Paulo A. V.; Serrano, Artur R. M.The development in recent years of new beta diversity analytical approaches highlighted valuable information on the different processes structuring ecological communities. A crucial development for the understanding of beta diversity patterns was also its differentiation in two components: species turnover and richness differences. In this study, we evaluate beta diversity patterns of ground beetles from 26 sites in Madeira Island distributed throughout Laurisilva – a relict forest restricted to the Macaronesian archipelagos. We assess how the two components of ground beetle beta diversity (βrepl – species turnover and βrich - species richness differences) relate with differences in climate, geography, landscape composition matrix, woody plant species richness and soil characteristics and the relative importance of the effects of these variables at different spatial scales. We sampled 1025 specimens from 31 species, most of which are endemic to Madeira Island. A spatially explicit analysis was used to evaluate the contribution of pure environmental, pure spatial and environmental spatially structured effects on variation in ground beetle species richness and composition. Variation partitioning showed that 31.9% of species turnover (βrepl) and 40.7% of species richness variation (βrich) could be explained by the environmental and spatial variables. However, different environmental variables controlled the two types of beta diversity: βrepl was influenced by climate, disturbance and soil organic matter content whilst βrich was controlled by altitude and slope. Furthermore, spatial variables, represented through Moran's eigenvector maps, played a significant role in explaining both βrepl and βrich, suggesting that both dispersal ability and Madeira Island complex orography are crucial for the understanding of beta diversity patterns in this group of beetles.
- Synonymy of Orthomus susanae Serrano & Borges, 2009 with Orthomus annae (Donabauer, 2008) (Coleoptera: Carabidae)Publication . Serrano, Artur R. M.; Aguiar, Carlos A. S.; Boieiro, Mário; Borges, Paulo A. V.; Rego, Carla; Amorim, Isabel R.; Ribeiro, Sérvio P.; Pereira, Fernando E. A. P.[...]. Some time after the publication of their paper in Zootaxa, the authors found out that another Madeiran Orthomus species had been described one month earlier (Donabauer 2008). Taking in consideration the morphological characteristics of the specimens described in both papers and the coincidence of the type localities no doubts remained regarding the synonymy between the two species.