Importance of Urban Parks in Conserving Biodiversity of Flower Chafer Beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea: Cetoniinae) in Brazilian Cerrado.

The Brazilian Cerrado, a hotspot and the largest savannah in the world, has been undergoing intense changes in land use for urbanization. The creation and maintenance of urban parks and public squares is one efficient biodiversity conservation strategy in urbanized landscapes. In this study, our objective was to evaluate the potential of urban parks with native vegetation for conservation of flower chafer beetles (Coleoptera: Cetoniinae), a beetle group usually used as a bioindicator in African landscapes, in Brazilian Cerrado. We sampled Cetoniinae beetles using aerial fruit-baited traps, every 2 wk from January to December 2014 in 10 areas of Cerrado in Aquidauana, MS, Brazil. We compared the species richness, abundance, biomass, and species composition between six 'natural reserve' areas (outside the urban matrix) and four 'urban park' areas (within the urban matrix), and identified specialist species of each habitat type. A total 508 individuals of nine species were captured. The abundance, species richness, and biomass were similar between natural reserve and urban park. However, species composition differed among the habitats. Gymnetis flava (Weber) was classified as an urban park specialist, while Euphoria lurida (Fabricius), and Hoplopyga liturata (Olivier) were classified as natural reserve specialists. Our results demonstrate that urban parks conserve the abundance, biomass and species richness of flower chafer beetles in the Brazilian Cerrado. In this context, our results suggest that the maintenance of the urban park with native vegetation can be an efficient strategy for the conservation of Cetoniinae beetles in the urban matrix in the Brazilian Cerrado.

Two new species of obligatory termitophilous rove beetles from Brazil (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Termitomorpha Wasmann).

In recent surveys carried out in Brazil, we detected two new species of Termitomorpha Wasmann, a genus of Termitogastrina (Aleocharinae, Corotocini). This genus is easily recognizable in the subtribe by the evenly convex and smooth pronotum. The new species are: Termitomorpha sinuosa Caron, Bortoluzzi Rosa sp. nov., and Termitomorpha alata Caron Bortoluzzi, sp. nov. Both species are here described and illustrated, including scanning electron photographs. Their host termites were identified as species of Nasutitermes. The key to species of Termitomorpha is updated based on recent literature.