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Drosophilid Assemblages at Different Urbanization Levels in the City of Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil

  • Ecology, Behavior and Bionomics
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Abstract

The present study analyzed the drosophilid assemblages in different levels of urbanization in the city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Collections were carried out in 2008 in three different environments: a highly urbanized area—“Jardim Botânico,” a forested area with intermediary urbanization—“Parque Gabriel Knijnik,” and in a relatively well-preserved forested area, although threatened by the urban growth—“Morro Santana.” In Jardim Botânico, 36 species belonging to four genera were found, with high abundance of exotic species as Drosophila simulans Sturtevant and Zaprionus indianus (Gupta). In Parque Gabriel Knijnik, 33 species that belonged to four genera were found, with higher abundances of native species belonging to the Drosophila tripunctata species group and Drosophila willistoni species subgroup, and lower abundance of exotic species. As for Morro Santana, 32 species and three genera were found, with higher abundances of native groups, low representativeness of exotic species, and absence of Zaprionus indianus. The analysis of the Jaccard index showed higher similarity in the species composition between samples collected in summer and autumn, and between samples collected in winter and spring. On the other hand, the Morisita index differentiated Jardim Botânico from the other two studied sites. Our results show that Morro Santana is an important area of native biodiversity, reinforcing, therefore, the inclusion of this area in the project for the creation of an ecological corridor as proposed by the Ministry of the Environment of Brazil.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Mr. Luiz Alberto Carvalho Júnior from the Secretaria do Meio Ambiente do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul for the permission to collect drosophilids in Parque Gabriel Knijnik, to Mr. Luiz Gheller from the Fundação Zoobotânica do Rio Grande do Sul for allowing us to conduct our collections in Jardim Botânico, to Drs. Ana C. L. Garcia and Martín A. Montes from UFPe by the encouragement and for the assistance in the collections, and to Bibiana Carrion from UFRGS, for the help in electrophoresis analyses. Our thanks also go to Drs. Victor H. Valiati (UNISINOS) and Marco S. Gottschalk (FURG), for the invaluable corrections and suggestions, to Professor Heinrich Hasenack from UFRGS, for the assistance to obtain meteorological data, and to Leonardo Lindenmeyer for the help with the graphics and images. This study was supported by grants and fellowships from CNPq and FAPERGS 10/0028-7.

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  1. Lab de Drosophila, Depto de Genética, Instituto de Biociências, Univ Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil

    CF Garcia, CJC Hochmüller, VLS Valente & HJ Schmitz

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  1. CF Garcia
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  2. CJC Hochmüller
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  3. VLS Valente
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Correspondence to CF Garcia.

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Edited by Kleber Del Claro — UFU

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Fig. S1

Ecological corridor (dark gray) proposed by Environment Ministry of Brazil. Modified from MMA (2007). MSA Morro Santana (JPEG 792 kb)

High resolution image file (TIF 11.3 MB)

Table S1

Absolute abundance of drosophilid species collected and identified in each site (JBO Jardim Botânico, PGK Parque Gabriel Knijnik, MSA Morro Santana) in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil. Sum summer, Aut autumn, Win winter, Spr spring of 2008 (DOCX 31.6 kb)

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Garcia, C., Hochmüller, C., Valente, V. et al. Drosophilid Assemblages at Different Urbanization Levels in the City of Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil. Neotrop Entomol 41, 32–41 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13744-011-0007-7

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