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Toucans are known for their predatory behavior, and urbanization can provide encounters with potential prey species that they would probably not meet in their usual natural habitats. Here, we describe a series of events of the Channel-billed Toucan (Ramphastos vitellinus) preying on eggs and nestlings of the Pale-breasted Thrush (Turdus leucomelas). The events occurred in a large forest fragment surrounded by an urban matrix in the Amazonian city of Manaus, Brazil. Urbanization has led to new challenges for many animals, including birds. The events reported here exemplify some of these challenges, such as the adaptation of a toucan or a population of toucans to exploit different food resources and find new prey in a modified environment, and the pressure of a new predator on the reproductive success of a thrush population. These new challenges may result in other adaptations and behaviors that must be investigated, as they can reveal patterns, impacts, or novelties on bird species and even on avian communities related to urbanization.

Purple Martins (Progne subis) are Neotropical migratory birds that breed across North America and spend their nonbreeding season in South America, primarily Brazil. They have been in a long-term population decline over the last five decades. There are several suggested causes for the decline, but to begin understanding the conservation needs of this species, it is necessary first to fill existing knowledge gaps about migration timing, distribution, and habitat use in Brazil. The presence of this species across most of Brazil makes it difficult to keep track of seasonal or long-term changes in its distribution without careful, widespread data collection. Citizen science offers an emerging opportunity to address knowledge gaps of roost distribution and phenology. Here, we compiled Purple Martin records from citizen science platforms, scientific collections, and bibliography to produce an overview of the distribution and phenology of the species in Brazil. It is present in most Brazilian states, but records are concentrated in the Amazon region. Previously known large roosts in southeast Brazil, especially in the state of Sao Paulo, have decreased in number of individuals over the last decade. Most records are from September to April, although phenology varies with latitude. In the equatorial region (5°N–5°S), which is crossed by all populations that come to Brazil, the number of reports shows strong temporal variation, probably related to the timing of migration in different populations.

An updated version of the checklist of birds of Brazil is presented, along with a summary of the changes approved by the Brazilian Ornithological Records Committee's Taxonomy Subcommittee since the first edition, published in 2015. In total, 1971 bird species occurring in Brazil are supported by documentary evidence and are admitted to the Primary List, 4.3% more than in the previous edition. Eleven additional species are known only from undocumented records (Secondary List). For each species on the Primary List, status of occurrence in the country is provided and, in the case of polytypic species, the respective subspecies present in Brazilian territory are listed. Explanatory notes cover taxonomic changes, nomenclatural corrections, new occurrences, and other changes implemented since the last edition. Ninety species are added to the Primary List as a result of species descriptions, new occurrences, taxonomic splits, and transfers from the Secondary List due to the availability of documentation. In contrast, eight species are synonymized or assigned subspecific status and thus removed from the Primary List. In all, 293 species are endemic to Brazil, ranked third among the countries with the highest rate of bird endemism. The Brazilian avifauna currently consists of 1742 residents or breeding migrants, 126 seasonal non-breeding visitors, and 103 vagrants. The category of vagrants showed the greatest increase (56%) compared to the previous list, mainly due to new occurrences documented in recent years by citizen scientists. The list updates the diversity, systematics, taxonomy, scientific and vernacular nomenclature, and occurrence status of birds in Brazil.

Este estudo teve como objetivo identificar áreas protegidas no estado do Amazonas, no Brasil, que são visitadas com fim de observação de aves, como também analisar a diversidade da avifauna e os serviços ofertados por populações residentes nas áreas protegidas. O estudo foi realizado com a aplicação de formulários on-line destinados aos 13 gestores destas áreas, como também, pesquisas na internet por roteiros e destinos no Amazonas, ofertados por operadores nacionais e internacionais. A análise dos dados foi feita por meio de estatística descritiva. Como resultados foram identificadas 14 áreas protegidas no Amazonas que são visitadas por avituristas, todas possuem listas de aves no eBird, com alta diversidade. As áreas mais diversas e com listas publicadas são: Parque Nacional de Anavilhanas, Museu da Amazônia (MUSA), Reserva Adolpho Ducke, Reserva do 41, Reserva da ZF-2 e a Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável Mamirauá. Comunidades locais disponibilizam serviços de condução nas trilhas, gastronomia, venda de artesanato e passeios de canoa. Mas elas também poderiam ofertar hospedagem, alimentação e outros serviços, gerando renda e sustentabilidade para a atividade turística.

SummaryThe Rio Branco is a river with unique biogeographic and ecological features, threatened by the Brazilian Government’s plan to build a major hydroelectric dam and associated hydroway along its course. The river crosses one of Amazonia’s largest rainfall gradients and a major geomorphological boundary along a savanna/forest ecotone, marked by the Bem Querer rapids. Above the rapids, the upper Rio Branco runs through the Boa Vista sedimentary formation and crosses the crystalline rocks of the Guiana Shield, and its margins are flanked by gallery forests. Downriver, it runs through a low-lying sedimentary basin, with Amazonian floodplain forests along its margins. Here, we present the results of ∼ 15 years of ornithological research on the Branco and its major tributaries, providing baseline data and evaluating potential threats to the riverine avifauna. Our surveys included opportunistic observations and standardized surveys along the entire length of the river in 16 systematically distributed localities. We catalogued 439 bird species, 87% of which are documented by physical evidence (specimens, recordings, photographs). Forty-six percent are restricted to single habitats, suggesting a high degree of habitat specialisation. A third of the species are widely distributed along the river, whereas 45% are restricted to either the upper or the lower Rio Branco, including 40 and 30 Indicator Species, respectively. Twenty-five species are threatened at global or national levels, including two ‘Critically Endangered’, nine ‘Vulnerable’, and 14 ‘Near Threatened’. We present a list of 50 bird species that are candidates for monitoring studies. Threats to the avifauna from dam construction include permanent flooding above the dam, eliminating gallery forests, river islands, and sandy beaches, and the disruption of the flood pulse along the river, affecting river island and floodplain forest specialists, many of which are globally threatened with extinction. If built, the Bem Querer dam will wipe out the ecotone region and affect dramatically the river’s avifauna.

Similar species ranges may represent outcomes of common biological processes and so form the basis for biogeographical concepts such as areas of endemism and ecoregions. Nevertheless, spatial range congruence is rarely quantified, much less incorporated in bioregionalization methods as an explicit parameter. Furthermore, most available methods suffer from limitations related to the loss, or the excess of range information, or scale bias associated with the use of grids, and the incapacity to recognize independent overlapped patterns or gradients of range distributions. Here, we propose an analytical method, Spatial Congruence Analysis (SCAN), to identify biogeographically meaningful groups of species, called biogeographic elements. Such elements are based on direct and indirect spatial relationships among species’ ranges and vary depending on an explicit measure of range congruence controlled as a numerical parameter in the analysis. A one-layered network connects species (vertices) using pairwise spatial congruence estimates (edges). This network is then analyzed for each species, separately, by an algorithm that accesses the entire web of spatial relationships to the reference species. The method was applied to two datasets: a simulated gradient of ranges and real distributions of birds. The gradient results showed that SCAN can describe gradients of distribution with a high level of detail, without confounding transition zones with true biogeographical units, a frequent pitfall of other methods. The bird dataset showed that only a small portion of range overlaps is biogeographically meaningful, and that there is a large variation in types of patterns that can be found with real distributions. Distinct reference species may converge on similar or identical groups of spatially related species, may lead to recognition of nested species groups, or may even generate similar spatial patterns with no species in common. The biological significance or causal processes of these patterns should be investigated a posteriori. Patterns can vary from simple ones, composed by few highly congruent species, to complex, with numerous alternative component species and spatial configurations, depending on particular parameter settings as determined by the investigator. This approach eliminates or reduces limitations of other methods and permits pattern description without hidden assumptions about processes, and so should make a valuable contribution to the biogeographer’s toolbox.“If there is any basic unit of biogeography, it is the geographic range of a species.” - Brown, Stevens & Kaufman [1].“[spatial] congruence […] should be optimized, while realizing that this criterion will most likely never be fully met” - HP Linder [2].

Although species lists from throughout Amazonia have become available, relatively complete inventories based on longterm work remain rare. Longitudinal comparisons at well-studied sites provide the best opportunities for describing communities and identifying changes in regional avifaunas. Within central Amazonia, no region has received as much consistent ornithological coverage as the terra firme forests north of Manaus, Brazil, at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP). Here we provide an updated list of the area, including notes on all species added between 1997 and 2017. We recorded 21 species new for the site, most of which (>75%) are birds that prefer varzea or second-growth forest. This brings the cumulative BDFFP list up to 409 species, the majority (66%) of which inhabit primary terra firme forest. Together, this confirms that the regional terra firme community had been well-characterized by the 1990s, and that species additions to the list over the last 20 years are consistent with a changing landscape as urbanization, agriculture, and second-growth spread from Manaus. The final product continues to represent the most complete avian inventory for a single site in all of lowland Amazonia.

The annual flooding in the Amazon basin transforms the understory of floodplain forests into an aquatic environment. However, a great number of non-aquatic bird species occupy the understory and midstory of these forests. In general, these birds are thought to be sedentary and territorial, but the way they adapt to this dramatic seasonal transformation has never been described in detail. In this study, we describe avifaunal strategies to cope with seasonal flooding in the lower Purus region, central Amazonia, Brazil. We conducted focal observations of five insectivorous species occupying the lowest forest strata in two types of floodplain forest (black- and whitewater) during the low- and high-water seasons. For each observation, the height of the bird above the substrate (ground or water), its vertical position in the forest, and vegetation density around the bird were noted. All species remained present in the floodplain forests during the two seasons and were not recorded in adjacent unflooded (terra firme) forest. In general, birds migrated vertically to higher forest strata and most species (three of the five) occupied similar vegetation densities independent of water level. Despite the tendency of all species to rise in relative vertical position at high water, there was a reduction in height above substrate for four of the five species, suggesting that their position relative to water was not an important microhabitat element for them. Responses were similar in the two floodplain forest types. It is likely that the decrease in available space during the flood, combined with similar vertical displacement in arthropods, leads to increased prey density for understory insectivorous birds and permits year-round territoriality without major habitat shifts.

It is well known that bird richness in the Amazon is greater in upland forests and that seasonally flooded forest is particularly species poor. However, the misleading pattern of greater bird richness in seasonally flooded forest has emerged seemingly unnoticed numerous times in richness maps in the literature. We hypothesize that commission errors in digital distribution maps (DDMs) are the cause behind the misleading richness pattern. In the Amazon, commission errors are a consequence of the different methodological treatment given to large-ranged versus small-ranged habitat specialists when mapping distributions. DDMs of 1007 Amazonian birds were examined, and maps that had commission errors were corrected. We generated two richness maps, one from the overlay of original DDMs and another from the overlay of the corrected ones. We identified 291 species whose distribution maps had errors. In the original data, seasonally flooded forests showed higher species richness than upland forest, but this pattern was reverted in the corrected richness map. Commission errors were 35 times more likely in the seasonally flooded forest. We conclude that DDMs accurately portray the distribution of single species in the Amazon. Commission errors in individual maps, however, accumulate when they are overlaid, explaining the misleading pattern for birds in the Amazon. DDMs can continue to be used mapping richness, as long as, at a regional scale: (1) basic map refinements are carried, or (2) only small-range species are used for mapping species richness.

Sexual selection in many animal species favors the evolution of elaborate courtship traits. Such traits might help signalers convey, and receivers discern, information about signaler quality; or they might be favored by perceptual or aesthetic preferences for elaborateness or beauty [1-3]. Under either scenario we expect sexual trait elaboration to be countered by proximate constraints rooted in animals' morphology, physiology and phylogenetic history [3,4]. During expeditions to a montane rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon, we obtained amplitude-calibrated measures of mating songs in two species of cotingas, the white bellbird (Procnias albus) and the screaming piha (Lipaugus vociferans). The screaming piha sings the loudest songs of any passerine bird previously documented [5]. However, we find that white bellbirds are >9 dB louder, and thus achieve roughly triple the sound pressure levels of pihas. Mechanical constraints on amplitude, and thus limits on the reach of sexual selection, are revealed by trade-offs between maximal sound pressure and song duration. We find that song amplitude in bellbirds is context-dependent: when a female was on the display perch, a male bellbird sang only his louder song type, swiveling his body mid-song to face the female head on. We know of no other species in which such high-amplitude vocal signals are directed to receivers in such close proximity. We propose that bellbird females balance an interest in sampling males at close range with a need to protect themselves from hearing damage.

Orange-fronted Plushcrown Metopothrix aurantiaca is a unique, but easily overlooked, small furnariid found in the midstorey and canopy of riverine areas in the Amazon. The species' previously published distribution includes parts of southernmost Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, northern Bolivia and western Brazil. In the easternmost part of its distribution (Brazil), M. aurantiaca occurs in the states of Acre, Amazonas and Rondônia, east to 64°W. We present nine new records of the species in Brazil, all of them east of its previously known distribution and together extending the range by c.750 km. These new records derive from sampling that includes collecting expeditions, exhaustive várzea surveys, and incidental observations. We propose a new continuous distribution for this species restricted to white-water river floodplains with known occurrences. © 2019 The Authors.

From 15 January to 06 February 2016, we conducted an expedition to the Serra da Mocidade, a remote and previously unexplored mountain range in extreme northern Amazonian Brazil. There we encountered three bird species never before documented in Brazilian territory: Grallaria guatimalensis (Grallariidae) was photographed, audio recorded, video recorded and a single specimen collected; Catharus aurantiirostris (Turdidae) was similarly documented and a series of specimens collected; and a single individual of Parkesia motacilla (Parulidae) was photographed. All were found in the understory of montane forest at 1000–1550 m elevation. We interpret each of these as most likely representing a regularly occurring population on Mocidade. However, each had probably been overlooked in Brazil for a different reason and represents a distinct distributional pattern. Adding these novelties to Brazil’s previously published total of 1919 species clearly expresses the country’s position among the most bird-rich in the world, perhaps the richest, and suggests that further exploration of Brazil’s Amazonian mountains will yield more discoveries.

Species with congruent geographical distributions, potentially caused by common historical and ecological spatial processes, constitute biogeographical units called chorotypes. Nevertheless, the degree of spatial range congruence characterizing these groups of species is rarely used as an explicit parameter. Methods conceived for the identification of patterns of shared ranges often suffer from scale bias associated with the use of grids, or the incapacity to describe the full complexity of patterns, from core areas of high spatial congruence, to long gradients of range distributions expanding from these core areas. Here, we propose a simple analytical method, Spatial Congruence Analysis (SCAN), which identifies chorotypes by mapping direct and indirect spatial relationships among species. Assessments are made under a referential value of congruence as an explicit numerical parameter. A one-layered network connects species (vertices) using pairwise spatial congruence estimates (edges). This network is then analyzed for each species, separately, by an algorithm which searches for spatial relationships to the reference species. The method was applied to two datasets: a simulated gradient of ranges and real distributions of birds. The simulated dataset showed that SCAN can describe gradients of distribution with a high level of detail. The bird dataset showed that only a small portion of range overlaps is biogeographically meaningful, and that there is a large variation in types of patterns that can be found with real distributions. Species analyzed separately may converge on similar or identical groups, may be nested in larger chorotypes, or may even generate overlapped patterns with no species in common. Chorotypes can vary from simple ones, composed by few highly congruent species, to complex, with numerous alternative component species and spatial configurations, which offer insights about possible processes driving these patterns in distinct degrees of spatial congruence. Metrics such as congruence, depth, richness, and ratio between common and total areas can be used to describe chorotypes in detail, allowing comparisons between patterns across regions and taxa.

Vegetation on sandy soils, ranging from open grasslands and shrublands to closed-canopy, thin-trunked forests, can be found in patches throughout the Amazon. Despite variation in names, appearance, ecological correlates, and suggested origins, these ‘white-sand ecosystems’ (WSE) share distinctive characteristics and biological communities. Here, in the first Amazon-wide review of WSE, we review the variation in WSE and the factors underlying this variation. We present the most comprehensive Amazon-wide map to date of WSE and calculate their total area. We find that WSE are still not completely mapped, and we use biological correlates as a proxy to indicate where white-sand vegetation patches likely occur. Through our synthesis of the literature, we find that key factors, such as geologic origin, soil characteristics, hydrology, and fire regimes, vary widely and have differing impacts in different regions on vegetation structure and on floral, faunal, and fungal species composition. Although studies of WSE have increased dramatically in recent years, WSE in many parts of the Amazon remain understudied, and there is little synthesis of the interaction of factors across different areas. In response, we suggest priorities for future research. Finally, we find that WSE are inadequately protected and, where accessible, are regularly mined for sand, logged, or burned and cleared for agriculture. We argue that due to their island-like distribution patterns and resultant complex metapopulation dynamics, their extremely slow recovery after disturbance, and their important contributions to basin-wide diversity patterns and ecosystem services, WSE should be given special consideration in conservation efforts to ensure their persistence in Amazonia. Resumo A vegetacao sobre solos arenosos, que varia desde campos abertos ou arbustivos ate florestas de dossel fechado, pode ser encontrada em manchas distribuidas em toda a Amazonia. Apesar da variacao no nome, fisionomia, fatores ecologicos associados e origens sugeridas, esses ecossistemas sobre areia branca (white-sand ecosystems, WSE) compartilham caracteristicas ecologicas particulares e comunidades biologicas semelhantes. Esta e a primeira revisao sobre WSE compreendendo toda a Amazonia, e analisando a variacao em WSE e os fatores subjacentes a esta variacao. Apresentamos o mapa mais detalhado ate o momento para WSE na Pan-Amazonia e calculamos sua area total. Revelamos que os WSE ainda nao estao completamente mapeados, e usamos correlatos biologicos para indicar onde manchas de vegetacao de areia branca provavelmente ocorrem. Uma sintese da literatura demonstra que os fatores-chave, tais como a origem geologica, as caracteristicas do solo, a hidrologia e regimes de fogo, variam em diferentes regioes, assim como seus efeitos sobre a estrutura da vegetacao e a composicao das comunidades de plantas, animais e fungos. Embora o numero de estudos de WSE venha aumentado drasticamente nos ultimos anos, WSE em muitas areas da Amazonia permanecem pouco estudados e ha poucas sinteses da interacao de fatores em diferentes areas. Assim, sugerimos prioridades para pesquisas futuras. Finalmente, mostramos que os WSE estao inadequadamente protegidos e, quando acessiveis, estao comumente sujeitos a extracao de areia e madeira ou a conversao para agricultura. Devido a seus padroes de distribuicao em ilhas e consequente complexa dinâmica metapopulacional, alem de sua recuperacao extremamente lenta apos perturbacao e importante contribuicao para os padroes de diversidade e servicos ecossistemicos, recomendamos especial atencao a conservacao dos WSE na Amazonia. Resumen La vegetacion que existe en suelos arenosos, y que tiene varias formas incluyendo areas abiertas y gramineas, areas arbustivas y bosques de dosel cerrado y de troncos delgados, se puede encontrar en pequenas manchas por toda la Amazonia. A pesar de la variacion de nombres, apariencias, correlatos ecologicos y origenes sugeridos, estos ecosistemas de arena blanca (white-sand ecosystems, WSE) tienen distintas caracteristicas y comunidades biologicas en comun. En este articulo, que es la primera revision de WSE en toda la Amazonia, revisamos la variacion en WSE y los factores en que esta basada esa variacion. Presentamos el mapa mas completo hasta ahora de WSE y calculamos su area total. Encontramos que los WSE todavia no son mapeados en una manera completa y usamos correlatos biologicos para indicar donde probablemente existen parches de WSE. La sintesis de la literatura revela que los factores claves, como los origenes geologicos, las caracteristicas del suelo, la hidrologia, y los patrones de incendios, varian ampliamente y tienen impactos distintos en diferentes regiones sobre la estructura de la vegetacion y la composicion de especies de las comunidades de plantas, animales y hongos. Aunque el numero de estudios de WSE ha aumentado rapidamente en los ultimos anos, los WSE estan todavia poco conocidos en muchas areas de la Amazonia y hay poca sintesis de la interaccion de factores en diferentes ambitos. En respuesta a esto, sugerimos las prioridades para la investigacion futura. Finalmente, encontramos que la proteccion de WSE es inadecuada y que, cuando son accesibles, son explotados para sacar la arena del suelo, sus arboles son tumbadas o quemadas y sus areas usadas para la agricultura. Exponemos que, debido a sus patrones de distribucion como islas y por lo tanto su compleja dinamica de metapoblaciones, su extremadamente lenta recuperacion despues de la perturbacion, y sus importantes contribuciones a los patrones de diversidad y servicios ecosistemicos en toda la cuenca, los WSE debe recibir consideracion especial en los esfuerzos de conservacion para garantizar su persistencia en la Amazonia.

White-sand vegetation (WSV) harbors a unique avifauna within Amazonia, including species with patchy distributions. The history of these species' populations is likely related to variation in the availability and connectivity among WSV patches though time. By investigating the phylogeographic history of WSV bird species, we aim to better understand the dynamic evolution of forested and open habitats in Amazonia. Here, we perform a phylogeographic analysis of two WSV specialist bird species, a tanager, Tachyphonus phoenicius, and a hummingbird, Polytmus theresiae. We obtained and analyzed sequences of one mitochondrial and one nuclear gene region from 152 individuals. Results indicate that the two species have different histories. Tachyphonus phoenicius split from its Atlantic Forest/Cerrado sister clade at about 11 Ma and includes two divergent lineages, north and south of the Amazon River. Polytmus theresiae split from its Tepuian sister group at about 2.5 Ma and shows no genetic structure within Amazonia. Both lineages of T. phoenicius and P. theresiae show signs of recent population expansion. Although the two WSV species originated at different moments, and show distinct patterns of population structure, both seem to have expanded their population sizes recently, indicating that availability of white-sand habitats may have been increasing historically and the connectivity among different white-sand patches may have been higher in the recent past.

Morphological, vocal and genetic studies have shown that the Madeira River and its right bank tributaries delimit populations of primates and birds. We sequenced the cytochrome b gene (approx. 950 bp) for individuals of three suboscine passerine bird species, Glyphorynchus spirurus (Furnariidae), Willisornis poecilinotus (Thamnophilidae) and Schiffornis turdina (Tityridae), on opposite banks of the Madeira River and two of its right-bank tributaries, the Aripuana and Jiparana rivers. Phylogenetic hypotheses (parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian analysis) revealed clades that have over 3.1% genetic differentiation on opposite banks of the Madeira River for G. spirurus, W. poecilinotus and S. turdina, suggesting that this river restricts gene flow among populations of these three species. The Jiparana and Aripuana rivers apparently separate distinct populations of G. spirurus, the smallest species we examined, but not those of the other two heavier bodied species, W. poecilinotus and S. turdina. In G. spirurus four clades with high levels of genetic differentiation (3.2–5.5%) were found to be delimited by the three rivers evaluated, whereas in W. poecilinotus and S. turdina no genetic structure across the Jiparana and Aripuana rivers was detected. In general, birds that are known to show population structure across the Madeira tributaries (Glyphorynchus spirurus, Hemitriccus minor, Hypocnemis rondoni, Herpsilochmus stotzi, and Hylophylax naevius) have body masses smaller than those of both Willisornis poecilinotus and Schiffornis turdina, but some exceptions are discussed. Future studies controlling for several variables are necessary to determine the extent to which body mass is a useful predictor of genetic population structure in understory suboscine passerines.

While many published maps of avian species richness indicate northern Amazonia to be somewhat species-poor, recent surveys reveal that this area actually possesses one of the most species-rich avifaunas in the Neotropical lowlands. Our surveys indicate that at least 520 bird species occur in Virua National Park (VNP) and adjacent areas, which is located in the Brazilian state of Roraima (northern Amazonia). Here, we present the results of our ornithological efforts since 2001, based on audio-visual and mist-netting surveys, vouchered by tape and digital recordings, photographs, and collected specimens. VNP is dominated by Amazonian white-sand forest (locally known as campina and campinarana) on an extensive foodplain influenced by muddy-, clear-, and black-water rivers, forming a complex mosaic of habitats that includes varzea, igapo, and hilltop “islands” with terra-firme forest. Te high avian diversity found at VNP is likely due to both biogeographic- and local-scale processes. Each habitat contains a particular avian assemblage. Patches of terra-firme forest have a typical Guianan avifauna. Campina and campinarana contain unique species, including some poorly known and range-restricted (e.g., Aprositornis disjuncta), as well as species typical of the northern Roraiman savannas (e.g., Icterus nigrogularis). Te varzea of the Rio Branco (with its associated river islands) is particularly species-rich, including the endemic Cercomacra carbonaria and isolated populations of white-river-island specialists (e.g., Mazaria propinqua). VNP protects important ecological ecotones and biogeographical contact zones, as well as 27 threatened and 45 migratory bird species. On the other hand, 71 species reported for our study area have been found outside the current boundaries of the park. Ongoing proposals of expanding the limits of the park would absorb most of these species. With its outstanding bird species richness and wide variety of habitats, VNP emerges as an important site for Amazonian avian research, tourism, and conservation. Despite the park’s protected status, the Brazilian government plans to build a hydroelectric dam in the region, representing the main threat to its avifauna and overall biodiversity.

Open vegetation (campinas and campinaranas) associated with white sand patches occurs in the form of islands in a forested matrix throughout the Amazon basin. Bird species restricted to these habitats have patchy distributions, although connectivity may have been influenced by past glacial cycles as a result of the substitution of forest by savanna. Because these landscape changes are a matter of debate in the history of Amazonia, we studied the diversification of Xenopipo atronitens, a white sand specialist, aiming to infer the effects of past climate changes. The split of Xenopipo atronitens from its sister species, Xenopipo uniformis, may be related to Tepuis erosion and retreat of escarpments during the Miocene, or to a dispersal event. Compared with birds from terra firme forest, X. atronitens has low genetic structure. Low levels of unidirectional gene flow were found from the Guyana Shield to adjacent areas. Demographic expansion starting approximately 25 kyr BP was detected for some populations and is probably related to the Last Glacial Maximum and subsequent climate improvement. Landscape genetic analyses indicate that the forested (terra firme) matrix acts as a barrier for the dispersal of X. atronitens. The results of the present study indicate that glacial cycles have deeply influenced Amazonian biogeographical history, demonstrating a complex interaction between forest and nonforest habitats during the Pleistocene. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013, 110, 60–76.

Aim To offer a test of expert knowledge about rarity of twenty Amazon forest bird species following an approach that equates rarity with low site occupancy and formally accounts for imperfect species detection. We define ten pairs of closely related species, each pair with one hypothetically common and one hypothetically rare species. Our null hypothesis is that members of each pair have similar occupancy, with hypothesized differences due to detection errors alone. Location A 1000-ha plot of primary rainforest in the central Brazilian Amazon. Methods We visited each of 55 sampling sites multiple times per season for three field seasons and estimated the probability of site occupancy by each species following a maximum likelihood state-space approach that also estimates the probability that a species is present yet undetected at a site. To maximize detection and account for its variation, we employed three different sampling techniques while systematically training and testing observer's ability to recognize species. Results Occupancy estimates agree with expert predictions in all but two species pairs and show no evidence of clear temporal variation in occupancy between sampling seasons. Detection probability had a positive relation with observer ability, a strong relation to time of day across species, and a strong relation with the use of playback for some species. Detection with point counts and with autonomous recorders varied between species pairs. Main conclusions We reject the null hypothesis of equal occupancy within pairs, concluding that expert knowledge on species rarity is useful and worth eliciting. Our results replace qualitative ratings of rarity with statistical estimates of occupancy, establishing a reliable baseline for future comparisons. Besides illustrating the relevance of expert knowledge, this application to Amazonian birds illustrates a flexible approach that can be used for testing knowledge about rarity for a variety of species groups and spatial scales.

Brazil's only records of Pocock's olingo (Bassaricyon beddardi) are based on sightings from the northernmost state of Roraima, where the similar kinkajou (Potos flavus) was reported as absent. Our recent field work in the region led to the collection of two specimens and several more observations of kinkajous and a complete lack of evidence of the presence of olingos. Furthermore, the name used locally to describe the nocturnal procyonids previously treated as olingos, gogo de sola, refers to the leathery bare throat patch that we believe to be a characteristic unique to kinkajous. Thus, we conclude that previous records of olingos in Roraima represent misidentifications of kinkajous and recommend that, until supported by a specimen, B. beddardi be treated as absent from Brazil.

Our estimates indicate that about 30% of the seven million square kilometers that make up the Amazon basin comply with international criteria for wetland definition. Most countries sharing the Amazon basin have signed the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance but still lack complete wetland inventories, classification systems, and management plans. Amazonian wetlands vary considerably with respect to hydrology, water and soil fertility, vegetation cover, diversity of plant and animal species, and primary and secondary productivity. They also play important roles in the hydrology and biogeochemical cycles of the basin. Here, we propose a classification system for large Amazonian wetland types based on climatic, hydrological, hydrochemical, and botanical parameters. The classification scheme divides natural wetlands into one group with rather stable water levels and another with oscillating water levels. These groups are subdivided into 14 major wetland types. The types are characterized and their distributions and extents are mapped.

No abstract available

High rates of old growth (OG) forest destruction and difficult farming conditions result in increasing cover of secondary forests (SF) in the Amazon. In this setting, it is opportune to ask which animals use newly available SF and which stay restricted to OG. This study presents a comparison of SF and OG site occupancy by nocturnal birds in terra firme forests of the Amazon Guianan shield, north of Manaus, Brazil. We tested species-specific occupancy predictions for two owls (Lophostrix cristata/Glaucidium hardyi), two potoos (Nyctibius leucopterus/Nyctibius griseus) and two nightjars (Caprimulgus nigrescens/Nyctidromus albicollis). For each pair, we predicted that one species would have higher occupancy in OG while the other would either be indifferent to forest type or favor SF sites. Data were collected in 30 OG and 24 SF sites with monthly samples from December 2007 to December 2008. Our analytic approach accounts for the possibility of detection failure and for spatial autocorrelation in occupancy, thus leading to strong inferences about changes in occupancy between forest types and between species. Nocturnal bird richness and community composition were indistinguishable between OG and SF sites. Owls were relatively indifferent to forest type. Potoos followed the a priori predictions, and one of the nightjars (C. nigrescens) favored SF instead of OG as predicted. Only one species, Nyctib. leucopterus, clearly favored OG. The landscape context of our SF study sites, surrounded by a vast expanse of continuous OG forest, partially explains the resemblance between SF and OG fauna but leaves unexplained the higher occupancy for SF than OG sites for several study species. The causal explanation of high SF occupancy remains an open question, but the result itself motivates further comparisons for other groups, as well as recognition of the conservation potential of SF.

We present a review of recent studies about the evolutionary history of birds of the family Pipridae, commonly known as manakins. Birds of this family usually face strong sexual selection, due to their polygynic lekking breeding system. We focused on the effects of sexual selection on geographical distribution patterns, habitat utilization and reproductive behavior in populations and species, using the species Lepidothrix coronata as a case study. Whereas phylogeographical studies point to considerable genetic structure among populations within species in the family, intra-population studies reveal how the strength of sexual selection, by means of variation in male reproductive success, is affected by social and spatial organization at leks, and how elaborate courtship displays and plumage coloration may evolve. Sexual selection is herein suggested not only to have resulted in great morphological and behavioral complexity in the family, but also to have contributed to the differentiation of life histories among different evolutionary lineages. Further studies of the variations in morphological and behavioral traits in the family, as well as studies on the social and spatial structure within populations, will provide a better understanding of the demographic history of these species. Few studies have correlated the behavioral repertoire of males with reproductive success or have evaluated the relevance of habitat characteristics to female preference, which will provide valuable data on a local scale. On a regional scale, studies focusing on contact zones would offer ways to understand, for example, the effects of variation in female preferences and male-male interactions on patterns of introgression. Taken together, these approaches would reveal the importance of sexual selection for the evolution of independent evolutionary lineages and, as such, for taxonomic diversification in the family.

Researchers predict that new infrastructure development will sharply increase the rate and extent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. There are no predictions, however, of which species it will affect. We used a spatially explicit model that predicts the location of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by 2020 on the basis of historical patterns of deforestation following infrastructure development. We overlaid the predicted deforested areas onto maps of bird ranges to estimate the amount of habitat loss within species ranges. We also estimated the amount of habitat loss within modified ecoregions, which were used as surrogates for areas of bird endemism. We then used the extent of occurrence criterion of the World Conservation Union to predict the future conservation status of birds in the Brazilian Amazon. At current rates of development, our results show that at least 16 species will qualify as threatened or will lose more than half of their forested habitat. We also identified several subspecies and isolated populations that would also qualify as threatened. Most of the taxa we identified are not currently listed as threatened, and the majority are associated with riverine habitats, which have been largely ignored in bird conservation in Amazonia. These habitats and the species they hold will be increasingly relevant to conservation as river courses are altered and hydroelectric dams are constructed in the Brazilian Amazon.

Flooded forests represent an important part of Amazonian diversity, yet the distribution, ecology, and evolutionary history of the avifauna of these forests have received little attention. We conducted ornithological surveys in the Rio Branco Basin, which is entirely in the Brazilian State of Roraima. In this paper, we discuss the presence of 20 bird species recorded along the lower Rio Branco, 16 of which represent new records for the State of Roraima and the entire Rio Branco Basin. Among our most interesting records are four species of white-water river specialists (Synallaxis propinqua, Stigmatura napensis, Serpophaga hypoleuca, and Conirostrum bicolor) that have populations on the lower Rio Branco, isolated from other Amazonian white-water river systems by the black waters of the Rio Negro where they do not occur. We also discovered new localities for the endemic and endangered Rio Branco Antbird (Cercomacra carbonaria), doubling the size of its known range. We discuss the implications of th...

This study is the first to present a quantitative survey of bird species occurring in the archipelago of Anavilhanas, located in the Rio Negro in the Brazilian Amazon and is part of the Anavilhanas Ecological Station. We asked whether bird community composition is similar among the islands, and between islands and areas dominated by the surrounding upland terra firme forest on the left (east) margin of the Rio Negro. The surveys were conducted in November and December of 1988, using two complementary methods with mist nets and boat transects. A total of 232 bird species was found for Anavilhanas including a survey done in 1998. The families Tyrannidae and Thamnophilidae showed the highest number of species (16.4% and 9.0% of the total respectively). Some species not well known or having limited distributions are relatively frequently encountered in the archipelago, such as Spizastur melanoleucus, Mitu tomentosa, Phaethornis rupurumii, Xiphorhynchus kienerii, Thamnophilus nigrocinereus, Myrmotherula klagesi, Myrmoborus lugubris, Pipra filicauda, and Cephalopterus ornatus. Hybrid Multidimensional Scaling (HMDS) ordination analysis indicated that the bird community composition is similar among islands. However, the bird community composition on the islands was significantly different from that in sites of terra firme forest at Rio Negro margins. Anavilhanas is a unique ecological system in the Amazon and has it own avifauna.

An undescribed population of antbirds in the Cercomacra tyranninalni- grescens complex that is sympatric with Cercomacra tyrannina was discovered north of Manaus, Brazil. The new population differs from Cercomacra tyrannina in plumage, certain mensural characters, and especially voice. Based on similarity of the song, the undescribed form from Manaus is considered conspecific with Cercomacra tyrannina laeta. However, because of the sympatry of the Manaus population with Cercomacra tyrannina, laeta must be elevated to full species level, with three subspecies: Cercomacra laeta laeta in extreme southeastern Amazonia; C. laeta sabinoi in northeastern Brazil; and a new subspecies described in this paper, known only from the vicinity of Manaus and eastern Roraima, approximately 650 km north Manaus. The population of Cercom- acra tyrannina north of the Amazon River and west of the Rio Negro, formerly assigned to Cercomacra tyrannina laeta, is shown to be allied with Cercomacra tyrannina rather than Cercomacra laeta. In this paper, we recognize a valid species and subspecies from two areas whose avifaunas are among the best known in tropical South America. The cryptic species, Cercomacra laeta, was already represented by many dozens of speci- mens in museum collections. Our findings demonstrate that the accurate cataloging of the planet's biodiversity will rely not only on expeditions to remote mountain valleys but also on a careful analysis of specimens and information already at our disposal.

With improvements in taxonomic resolution in recent years, the Amazon basin is increasingly recognized as containing restricted-range taxa and areas of endemism. For many of these taxa, rivers delimit their geographic distributions and separate sister species. Among most lizards the geographic pattern is not clear. We attempt to determine the existence of cryptic diversity in the Spectacled Lizard Leposoma osvaldoi by analyzing the geographic variation in its morphology. We specifically tested whether the Rio Madeira, Rio Purus, Rio Aripuana, and Rio Roosevelt delimit differentiated lizard forms. Using multivariate analysis, we detected that males of L. osvaldoi have larger heads than females but females have longer bodies. Large rivers, such as the Rio Purus and Rio Madeira, do not play a significant role in the geographic variation of L. osvaldoi. However, specimens from two localities on opposite banks of the upper Rio Aripuana occupy the lower and upper ranges of variation in L. osvaldoi and ...

Recognition of biogeographical patterns depends on accurate knowledge of phylogenetic relationships. In tropical South America, where species richness is very high, but knowledge of relationships is rudimentary, numerous biogeographic patterns await discovery. Work to date has focused mostly on patterns in lowland Amazonia (see Haffer 1993 and references therein), although a few other patterns have been identified, such as the "circum-Amazonian" pattern (Remsen et al. 1991), Andean "leapfrog" pattern (Remsen 1984), and a variety of patterns associated with dry forest species (Willis 1992). With few exceptions (e.g. Cracraft and Prum 1988, Hackett 1993), pattern recognition has not been based on explicit phylogenies, but has made use of uncontroversial monophyletic taxa, such as single polytypic species, obvious species pairs, or allospecies groups. As knowledge of distributions and systematics of South American birds improves, we can expect new patterns to appear and old ones to be revised. Here, I present evidence from external morphology and voice that Hemitriccus spodiops (Yungas Tody-Tyrant) and lowland Amazonian H. minor (Snethlage's Tody-Tyrant) are sister taxa, and that both species equally and exclusively meet criteria for membership in the subgenus Snethlagea. This contradicts earlier views of relationships of H. spodiops and suggests a novel biogeographic link between the Amazonian lowlands and adjacent Andean foothills that is supported by several other presumed sister-species pairs. Hemitriccus spodiops is a tiny flycatcher endemic to Bolivia, known only from the lower montane moist forests (yungas) of the eastern slope of the Andes between 800 and 1,600 m. Published data on its natural history are limited to two brief species accounts (Remsen et al. 1982, Parker et al. 1991), and its taxonomic history also is relatively brief and straightforward. After its original description as Euscarthmus spodiops (Berlepsch 1901), it has been placed in a sequence of genera (Euscarthmornis, Idioptilon, and finally Hemitriccus; see Lanyon 1988b). These nomenclatural changes, however, apply to tody-tyrants in general and do not reflect any change in thinking about the position of spodiops within this group. Three authors have addressed the phylogenetic relationships of H. spodiops within the tody-tyrants. In

We review the status of North American migrants in Amazonia and present recent records of the authors and co-workers. We report migration dates, maximum counts and new distributional information for 45 species. Included are the first Brazilian records of Piranga olivacea, the first Brazilian specimens of Contopus virens, and records of several shorebirds primarily restricted to coastal areas in South America that were previously unrecorded from inland Amazonia. Amazonia is south of the main wintering areas for most North American passerines; however, at least eight species winter primarily in Amazonia. Amazonia appears to be an important migratory route for many shorebirds, including major portions of the populations ofPluvialis dominica, Calidrisfuscicollis, and Calidris melanotos.

Researchers predict that new infrastructure development will sharply increase the rate and extent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. There are no predictions, however, of which species it will affect. We used a spatially explicit model that predicts the location of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon by 2020 on the basis of historical patterns of deforestation following infrastructure development. We overlaid the predicted deforested areas onto maps of bird ranges to estimate the amount of habitat loss within species ranges. We also estimated the amount of habitat loss within modified ecoregions, which were used as surrogates for areas of bird endemism. We then used the extent of occurrence criterion of the World Conservation Union to predict the future conservation status of birds in the Brazilian Amazon. At current rates of development, our results show that at least 16 species will qualify as threatened or will lose more than half of their forested habitat. We also identified several subspecies and isolated populations that would also qualify as threatened. Most of the taxa we identified are not currently listed as threatened, and the majority are associated with riverine habitats, which have been largely ignored in bird conservation in Amazonia. These habitats and the species they hold will be increasingly relevant to conservation as river courses are altered and hydroelectric dams are constructed in the Brazilian Amazon.

Our study (Sberze et al., 2010) combined three personal contributions: a professor’s (M. C.-H.) experience in neotropical ornithology, a post-doc’s (G. F.) practice with occupancy estimation, and a graduate student’s (M. S.) interest in nocturnal birds. The work was developed in the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), a 30-year landscape manipulation experiment focused on biological change in artificially isolated forest patches created by forest clearing in the early 1980s (Laurance et al., 2002). Circumstances beyond control of the BDFFP led to gradual abandonment of cleared land and subsequent growth of c. 30 km of secondary forest (SF) surrounded by old growth (OG) and embedding the experimental patches. Our occupancy study of nocturnal birds was at once an effort to take advantage of unplanned secondary growth (as accurately pointed out in Sekercioglu’s commentary) and a contribution to the ongoing debate about the conservation value of SF (Laurance & Wright, 2009). We are grateful to the editors of Animal Conservation for featuring our paper and to Ken Feeley, Cagan Sekercioglu and Daisy Dent for their kind and insightful commentaries. We aim this reply at clarifying some of our methodological choices and identifying two avenues for future progress. We believe that our study convincingly illustrates the potential conservation relevance of SF thanks to a set of simple methodological choices. Both abundance and occupancy estimates provide biologically meaningful quantifications of population state. Abundance estimates, however, require mark–recapture or counts of individuals at measurable distances from the observer (Williams, Nichols & Conroy, 2002). Our focus on occupancy was in part due to the difficulties of counting nocturnal birds mentioned by Sekercioglu (2010). At the same time, the occupancy approach provided a sound conceptual basis for comparing different types of land cover and allowed us to replicate sampling at a large and reasonably representative spatial extent. While attempting to cover as much ground as possible on foot, MS had to limit the time per sampling point. This temporal constraint reduced the probability of detecting species at each visit, increasing the importance of explicitly accounting for detection failure in the analyses, which we did. Also due to walking constraints, sampling points had to be relatively close to each other. We addressed this problem by quantifying the influence of occupancy in neighboring points upon occupancy at each focal point (spatial autocorrelation). Since we did not find strong evidence of spatial autocorrelation, the procedure gave us confidence that our sampling points are not pseudo-replicates. The spatial analysis was our strongest reason to use a Bayesian framework, although Feeley (2010) correctly suggests that we could have further explored the framework by using informative priors. We chose not to do this because we were interested in finding out whether our data revealed a priori expectations despite the use of priors that did not convey those expectations. Although most of our predictions were supported by the data, we were surprised by the general preference for SF over OG among owl species. We suspect that relatively high abundance of rodents in SF may attract owls, but we have no data to back up this explanation. We agree with Feeley (2010) that birds in SF may be in a demographic sink, that is a place where reproduction fails to keep pace with local mortality (Pulliam, 1988). This should inspire caution in the interpretation of results and motivate further investment in life-history study, a need that all commentaries have identified. Dent (2010) is particularly clear about this point, emphasizing how life-history information will help generalizations about what types of species are more or less vulnerable to landscape change. We believe that multi-taxon occupancy studies backed with detailed life-history information should be a major avenue of future progress (Gardner et al., 2009). The challenge resides in how much rigor will be required of life-history assessments. Life history studies are field-intensive and must be conducted one species at a time: more rigor will mean smaller sets of species and more limited contribution to generalization. Progress on this front requires a combination of smart data-mining, conceptual simplicity, and analytical sophistication. Ideally, this should be done without forgetting phylogenies, because species often share more than the life-history traits that we decide to measure (Harvey, 1996; Owens & Bennett, 2000). Relentless effort in life-history study should be complemented with further development of occupancy studies. This second avenue of progress presents analytical challenges but relatively little additional fieldwork. Recent work by Zipkin, DeWan & Royle (2009) illustrates how multi-taxon models of occupancy developed in a Bayesian framework make it possible to borrow information across species and thus produce inferences about species for which there are relatively few data. Perhaps even more important for the SF–OG comparisons is the infusion of a dynamic perspective in occupancy studies (MacKenzie et al., 2003). Our nocturnal bird study treats OG and SF as static environments for which we estimate average site-occupancy values. It would be desirable to estimate not only the occupancy at a

Since 2005, the Brazilian Ornithological Records Committee (CBRO) has published updated checklists of Brazilian birds almost every year. Herein, we present a completely new and annotated version of our checklist. For the first time, we list all bird subspecies known from Brazil that are currently accepted by at least one key ornithological reference work. The inclusion of the subspecies should be seen as a synthesis, and not as a taxonomic endorsement. As such, we include in the new checklist 1919 avian species, 910 of which are treated as polytypic in reference works (2042 subspecies), totaling 3051 taxa at the species and subspecies level. We anticipate that several of the subspecies included in our list may be subject to future taxonomic upgrades to species status, while others will probably be shown to be invalid in the light of future taxonomic studies. The results highlight Brazil as a megadiverse country and reinforce the need for proper enforcement of political tools, laws and international commitments assumed by the country to preserve its biodiversity. © 2015, Sociedade Brasileira de Ornitologia. All rights reserved.

Since 2005, the Brazilian Ornithological Records Committee (CBRO) has published updated checklists of Brazilian birds almost every year. Herein, we present a completely new and annotated version of our checklist. For the first time, we list all bird subspecies known from Brazil that are currently accepted by at least one key ornithological reference work. The inclusion of the subspecies should be seen as a synthesis, and not as a taxonomic endorsement. As such, we include in the new checklist 1919 avian species, 910 of which are treated as polytypic in reference works (2042 subspecies), totaling 3051 taxa at the species and subspecies level. We anticipate that several of the subspecies included in our list may be subject to future taxonomic upgrades to species status, while others will probably be shown to be invalid in the light of future taxonomic studies. The results highlight Brazil as a megadiverse country and reinforce the need for proper enforcement of political tools, laws and international commitments assumed by the country to preserve its biodiversity.