Integrative approach of the knowledge of Ephemeroptera (Insecta) from Brazil: threats, current status and database development

• Ano de defesa: 2021
• Autor(a) principal: Fernandes, Otávio Luiz
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Insetos aquáticos - Identificação - Brasil; Banco de dados; Amostragem; Avaliação de riscos ambientais; Conservação das Espécies Animais
• Link de acesso: https://locus.ufv.br//handle/123456789/28249

One of the main obstacles to the conservation of biodiversity is the lack of adequate knowledge of the descriptive taxonomy and the distribution of organisms, which is especially true for the insect order Ephemeroptera from Brazil. Ephemeroptera species are widely endorsed as bioindicators of water quality and ecological integrity, as they are sensitive to the effects of human activities in aquatic environments. However, near all the knowledge available for the order in Brazil is derived from taxonomic studies and is fragmented in the specialized literature. In this context, this study had three main objectives. First, to integrate and make available, through a website, basic taxonomic and distributional knowledge of Ephemeroptera from Brazil. Second, to assess the knowledge status and to reveal the implications of such knowledge to the conservation of the order. And, third, to determine the level of agreement between mayflies’ experts about environmental threats that affects the persistence of Ephemeroptera populations in Brazil. In our results, we provide open access to basic taxonomic and distributional information for Ephemeroptera through an interactive online database. We revealed that taxonomic studies of the order increased enormously in the last two decades, with a major expansion in the number of species descriptions (from 166 in 2004 to 414 in 2020) and its distinct semaphoronts. However, all occurrence records of the order are distributed in only 33% of Brazil, elucidating biases towards certain areas of the country. Additionally, experts’ opinion showed that mayflies suffer with different weights and sets of environmental threats in each Brazilian biome, with agriculture related ones considered prominent in almost all biomes. We conclude that is needed to direct efforts towards diminishing distributional and taxonomic shortfalls, and to address ecological studies regarding the ongoing environmental threats in the Brazilian territory that affect Ephemeroptera. Keywords: Aquatic insects. Database. Knowledge shortfalls. Sampling bias. Environmental threats.