EVALUATING THE LATITUDINAL GRADIENT OF ODONATA SPECIES RICHNESS IN CERRADO, TRANSITION AND AMAZON FOREST
Geographic range extent; Latitudinal gradiente, Rapoport’s rule, Body size, Anisoptera, Zygoptera.
The interest in understanding how species richness per unit area decreases with increasing latitude and elevation extends for over a century and a half, since early naturalists such as Darwin and Wallace began to observe the species distribution patterns. A great number of global patterns of biodiversity variation have been and continue to be explored, such as spatial scale-related richness variation (species-area relationships as well as local-regional richness) and along gradients. through space or environmental conditions. These patterns include: i) latitudinal gradient of species richness (GLRE); ii) the positive correlation between the latitudinal range extent of organisms occurring at a given latitude (Rapoport effect); iii) the relation of the variation in body size along environmental gradients proposed by Bergmann in 1848 (Bergmann clines). The objective of this study is to evaluate the distribution pattern of adult Odonata species in Cerrado, Cerrado-Amazon Transition and Amazon areas testing the existence of the latitudinal gradient in species richness.