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Environmental management is one of the most important activities in ecological conservation at present. Faced with various socioeconomic impacts (e.g., urbanization, agriculture, and logging), practical and effective ways to analyze and determine how biodiversity is affected by these anthropogenic activities are essential.

Urbanization has considerable impacts on stream ecosystems. Streams in urban settings are affected by multiple stressors such as flow modifications and loss of riparian vegetation. The richness and abundance of aquatic insects, such as odonates, directly reflect these alterations and can be used to assess urban impacts on streams.

Inland sand areas scattered across the North American eastern deciduous forest and western tallgrass prairie ecotone are known for supporting pyrogenic early-successional vegetation and specially adapted terrestrial faunas. Many of these globally and regionally rare systems contain functionally connected wetland networks (“wetscapes”) potentially important for aquatic insects.

Cyanallagma demoiselle sp. nov. (holotype male deposited in DZUP: Brazil, São Paulo State, Cananéia, Ilha do Cardoso State Park), a new small greenish blue and black damselfly, is described, illustrated, and diagnosed based on males and females from the southeastern Atlantic Forest.

Natural landscapes of Latin America, such as the Cerrado biome, are increasingly changing due to conflicting development models between economic growth and biodiversity conservation. In cases of total or partial suppression of natural vegetation, more sunlight reaches the streams, leading to changes in Odonata assemblages.

Our study evaluated the effects of environmental variables on the assemblages of the suborder Zygoptera, and tested the hypothesis that environmental variables are more important determinants of the structure of these assemblages than limnological variables in streams. We sampled 17 streams in the Carajás National Forest and tested our hypothesis using a linear regression analysis, with the zygopteran species composition, richness, and abundance as the response variables.