Welcome to katydids of the Atlantic Forest

A total of 577 species of katydids (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae) has been reported for Brazil (Eades et al. 2011), several of them were reported or described in old papers and certainly include multiple synonymous and poorly delimited species (Chamorro & Braun 2010). Certainly, several hundreds of Brazilian tettigoniids remain to be described. However, few comprehensive surveys on these organisms were conducted, possibly as a consequence of the low number of researchers working on the Brazilian katydids. Currently, besides the surveys conducted by us, there are no other research on the katydids of the Atlantic Forest (AF), and consequently neither taxonomic, genetic nor population data are available.

The AF is the most threatened bioma in Brazil, despite its dramatic fragmentation, the diversity seems to be higher than in most parts of the Amazonian Rain Forest. It is important to estimate the species diversity of katydids in Atlantic Forest (AF) remnants, so to determine the level of isolation between populations and then study the ecological and historical processes that have molded the current biodiversity in these areas. All this information can be used to support the proposition of strategies for the conservation of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest and its katydids.