Austral Ecology Volume 47 Issue 8 Editorial

Abstract

<p>In this issue of Austral Ecology, we present 10 Research Articles covering insects, crustaceans, fish anurans, fish and vegetation, covering a range of biomes across the Southern Hemisphere. Three manuscripts highlight insects ranging from ants, damselflies and dung beetles. Firstly, the responses of ant community structure to pioneer palm trees were studied in the Atlantic forest in north-eastern Brazil (Dantas et al., 2022). They identified palm trees as ecosystem engineers via the development of a thick leaf litter layer from the falling rachis. Ant communities in the areas dominated by the rachis leaf fall had lower ant species diversity, fewer rare species and palm tree ecosystems have changed the mound size and population density of dominant ant species. Secondly, damselfly mating success relative to male flying agility was assessed by de Almeida et al. (2022) in Uberlândia, Brazil. They found wing length is a good proxy for male body size and agility in the two species assessed; however, there was no evidence for agility explaining sexual-sized dimorphism nor an advantage for small males. Thirdly, parapatry for two congeneric dung beetle species was assessed along an altitudinal gradient in the Atlantic forest of Brazil (Araújo et al., 2022). The two Phanaeus species did exhibit a parapatric distribution on both mountains assessed with the main environmental driver leading to this distribution as maximum temperature.</p>