Bats play a fundamental role in ecosystem functioning since they are responsible for several ecological services such as seed dispersal and pollination. Therefore, assessing the effects of habitat structure at different scales on the bat assemblage is extremely important for supporting conservation strategies. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of habitat structure at multiple spatial scales on the bat assemblages and their variation along a gradient of secondary succession in a Brazilian tropical dry forest. Our results suggest that bat abundance is higher in areas close to mature forests, which shows the important role of those habitats as refuges for the regional bat fauna (in a fragmented landscape) and for the maintenance of ecosystem services provided by this group in tropical dry forests in a landscape context. In addition, bat abundance was lower in protected areas whose surroundings were better preserved (greater forest extension). This unexpected finding could result from an altered behavior in areas under a strong influence of a fruit crop matrix. Finally, we showed that the effects of the surroundings depend on the successional stage of the area under analysis. Late forests are more susceptible to variations in the forest cover in their surroundings, which show the higher fragility of these environments.

Galling arthropods represent one of the most specialized herbivore groups. On an evolutionary scale, different taxa of insects and mites have convergently adapted to a galling lifestyle. In this study, we have used a multi-taxonomic approach to analyze the interaction specialization between gall-inducing mites and insects and their host plants in the Nitra City Park (Nitra, Slovakia). We used four ecological descriptors for describe plant-galling interactions: number of host plant species used by each arthropod species, galling specificity on host plant species (specificity), exclusivity of interactions between galling and plant species (specialization) and overlap of the interactions between arthropod species (similarity). We have found 121 species of gall-inducing arthropods, totaling 90 insects and 31 mites occurring on 65 host plant species. Our results reveal that mites have high specialization and low similarity of interactions in comparison to insects. A multiple-taxonomic comparison showed that these differences are triggered by gall-wasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae), the taxon with the lowest levels of specificity of plant-galling interactions (i.e., occurring on different host plant species). Our findings are indicative of different patterns of interaction between distinct gall-inducing arthropods taxa and their host plants, despite the ecological convergence of different taxa to a highly specialized herbivorous habitat.

Host plants may harbor a variable number of galling insect species, with some species being able to harbor a high diversity of these insects, being therefore called superhost plants. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that the occurrence of superhost plant species of genus Qualea (Vochysiaceae) affects the structure of plant–galling insect ecological networks in Brazilian Cerrado. We sampled a total of 1882 plants grouped in 131 species and 43 families, of which 64 species and 31 families of host plants hosted 112 galling insect species. Our results showed that occurrence of superhosts of genus Qualea increased the linkage density of plant species, number of observed interactions, and the size of plant–galling insect networks and negatively affected the network connectance (but had no effect on the residual connectance). Although the occurrence of Qualea species did not affect the plant species richness, these superhosts increased the species richness and the number of interactions of galling insects. Our study represents a step forward in relation to previous studies that investigated the effects of plant diversity on the plant–insect networks, showing that few superhost plant species alter the structure of plant–herbivore networks, even without having a significant effect on plant diversity.

Several studies have already demonstrated the relationship between the loss of natural habitats and the incidence of diseases caused by vectors, such as dengue, which is an acute fever disease that is considered a serious public health problem. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between the number of dengue cases and land use and cover changes (LUCC) and socioeconomic and climatic factors by municipality, using the state of Minas Gerais as a case study. For this, secondary data obtained from openly available sources were used. Natural vegetation cover data were obtained from the MAPBiomas platform and dengue occurrence data from the Ministry of Health, in addition to eight socioeconomic parameters from the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics and precipitation data from the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA, Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais). Between 2015 and 2019, 1,255,731 cases of dengue were recorded throughout the state of Minas Gerais, ranging from 0 to 227 per thousand inhabitants between municipalities. The occurrence of dengue was distributed throughout all regions of Minas Gerais and was associated with LUCC and socioeconomic factors. In general, municipalities with a net loss of natural vegetation, predominantly located in the Cerrado biome, had the highest number of dengue cases in the studied period. Additionally, the occurrence of dengue was associated to three socioeconomic parameters: population density, human development index (both positively), and Gini inequality index (negatively). These results indicate that, contrary to expectations, municipalities with better social conditions had more dengue cases. Our study indicates that natural vegetation is, directly or indirectly, involved in the ecosystem service of dengue control, despite the occurrence of this disease being affected by multiple factors that interact in a complex way. Thus, policies towards reducing deforestation must be complemented by a continuous investment in public health policies and a reduction in social inequalities to efficiently control dengue fever.