A checklist of Rutelinae MacLeay , 1819 ( Coleoptera , Melolonthidae ) of Bahia , Brazil

A list of species of Rutelinae from Bahia state, Northeastern Brazil, is presented. The list is based on specimens deposited in Brazilian collections. The list includes 4 tribes, 23 genera, 101 species and 17 subspecies. The genera Byrsopolis Burmeister, 1844, Pseudodorysthetus Soula, 2008 and Trizogeniates Ohaus, 1917 are recorded for the first time in Bahia and Northeastern Brazil. Thirty species are newly recorded in Bahia: Areoda espiritosantensis Ohaus, 1905, B. laticollis Burmeister, 1855, Bolax flavolineata (Mannerheim, 1829), Chlorota abdominalis Ohaus, 1926, C. espiritosantensis Ohaus, 1912, Dorysthetus espiritosantensis Ohaus, 1905, D. fulgidus (Waterhouse, 1881), Leucothyreus acanthurus Ohaus, 1917, L. albopilosus Ohaus, 1917, L. campestris Burmeister, 1855, L. cayapo Ohaus, 1931, L. duplopunctatus Frey, 1976, L. eligius Ohaus, 1918, L. fluminensis Ohaus, 1918, L. iridipennis Ohaus, 1917, L. lucipetens Ohaus, 1931, L. occipitalis Ohaus, 1931, L. pallefactus Ohaus, 1924, L. paulista Ohaus, 1917, L. punctulatus Blanchard, 1851, L. suturalis Laporte, 1840, L. trochantericus Ohaus, 1917, L. verticalis Ohaus, 1924, Macraspis cincta (Drury, 1872), Paranomala tricostulata (Ohaus, 1897), P. violacea (Burmeister, 1844), Pseudodorysthetus calcaratus (Spinola, 1835), and Trizogeniates planipennis Ohaus, 1917. Pelidnota unicolor unicolor (Drury, 1778) is recorded for the first time in Bahia. Fourteen species are identified and will be described in subsequent papers: 10 of Leucothyreus MacLeay, 1819, 2 of Lobogeniates Ohaus, 1917 and 1 species of Byrsopolis Burmeister, 1844 and Pelidnota MacLeay, 1819. Rutelini is the richest tribe with 16 genera and 49 species. The information presented in the list generates an important set of knowledge regarding the diversity of Rutelinae of Bahia and Brazil and provides the basis for conducting future research within the group.

In this paper, we present an updated species list of Rutelinae from Bahia that are deposited in seven collections in South, Southeast and Northeast of Brazil.Information about the geographic distribution of the species listed is also provided.The data presented here gather important information that adds new knowledge about the diversity of Rutelinae in Brazil and the Neotropical region and serves as a basis for conducting future research with the group.

Material and Methods
Bahia is one of the biggest states of Brazil (Figure 1) with an area of 564.733,177 km 2 (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística-IBGE 2013), which represents 37.7% of all the Northeastern territory (Bahia 2013).The vegetation, climate, and altitudinal range are heterogeneous, with the presence of three Brazilian Biomes (Caatinga, Atlantic Forest and Cerrado), ecosystems of restingas, mangroves, campos rupestres, and ecotones between the biomes, rainforests, semi-deciduous forest and high montane vegetation, among others (Bahia 2013).
For the study of male genitalia, each specimen was immersed in boiling water for approximately two to four minutes and the genitalia removed, then studied under a stereomicroscope, glued in a triangle, and pinned just below the specimen.
The geographical coordinates, when not available on the label of the specimen, were obtained by the geoLoc tool on the speciesLink online data platform (http://splink.cria.org.br/geoloc), using the IBGE as a source for the data recovery.The geographical records were plotted on the map of Bahia using QGIS version 2.10.1.The final artwork for the map of geographical records and richness of genera and species by tribe was executed using Abobe Photoshop CS6 ® .
The information transcribed from the labels of the examined material usually adhered to the following pattern: COUNTRY, State: ("Locality"; "additional information"); (Geographic Coordinates), Data, Collector.(ACRONYM OF THE MUSEUM# register number).
There were recorded Ruteliane species in fifty-seven, taking into account the literature and the examined material, out of a total of 417 Bahian municipalities.Rutelini were found to occur in 41 localities, and Geniatini in 37 (Figure 1), which represents only 13.67% of the total amount of municipalities.Anomalini was recorded in only eight localities in the state and Anatistini only in the municipality of Cachoeira (Figure 1).Rutelini and Geniatini were recorded in all the Biomes, however Rutelini presented a concentration of records in areas of Atlantic Rain Forest near the coast.Geniatini had similar numbers of records in the Caatinga and in the Atlantic Forest (Figure 1).These findings could be attributed to the natural history of these tribes which immatures of Rutelini species occurs in dead wood The ruteline specimens of PPBio Semiarido were deposited in the MZFS and these represent 72.8% (1,064 specimens) of all specimens examined in this study, with 68 species and 5 subspecies.However, although the PPBio has contributed significantly to expand the records of the Rutelinae from Bahia, there are still significant gaps to be explored in the state.The west, southwest and north regions of Bahia present the largest gaps (Figure 1).Certainly, there are many species to be discovered in these regions of the state, which demonstrates the need of a greater collection effort in the regions mentioned above (Oliveira et al. 2016).In addition to the mentioned issues, many of the subfamily distribution records in the state are located in areas near the highways that cross Bahia (Figure 1).Oliveira et al. (2016) report that species composition decreases as distance from access routes increases, and they suggest that collection localities distant from access routes could increase the possibility of new geographic records as well as records of new species.Most of the records for the south region of Bahia, in Belmonte, Barrolândia, Camacan, Itamaraju, Mucuri, Porto Seguro, Prado and Una, and two localities in the southern region: Encruzilhada and Cândido Sales, are the result of material deposited at MNRJ, CERPE and EPGC (Suplementary Material).Similarly, the collection points located in the north of the state are also from material deposited in MNRJ (examined material).The records for the southern region, Aracatu and Vitória da Conquista (examined material), are deposited in the MFS and were collected by the author.
Among the biomes present in Bahia, the Atlantic Forest has the highest representativity of Rutelinae records, with 32 localities of occurrence: Caatinga with 20 (with the largest collects gap in the southwest, and especially in the north of the state (Figure 1)) and the Cerrado, with only 5 points of records, representing the largest collects gap of all biomes (Figure 1).Atlantic Forest originally accounted for 1,300,000 km 2 throughout 17 Brazilian states, with 120 million people living in this biome.However, only 22% of the original cover remains, and only 8.5% is in well preserved protection areas, on fragments of over 100 hectares (MMA 2017).Caatinga covers 844,453 km 2 , representing 11% of the national territory, and is present in nine states of Northeastern Brazil and in the north of Minas Gerais state (MMA 2017).The Caatinga and the Cerrado has been deforested in an accelerated way, especially in the last years, and 46% of the Caatinga total original cover has been deforested (Flores et al. 2012, MMA 2017).Cerrado has been historically transformed in extensive crop plantations in Brazil, causing an increasing reduction of the vegetal cover due to the progressive increase in agricultural economic activity in areas in its domain (Flores et al. 2012).This reduction in vegetal cover has, in turn, generated direct consequences for biodiversity loss (Queiroz 2009, MMA 2017).However, only 7.6% of the total area of the Caatinga is in the protection area, and only 1% of this area is designated as Units of Integral Protection (MMA 2017).In addition, approximately 30% of the Caatinga has already been altered due to human action, and especially due to agriculture.In view of these factors, there is a risk of the rapid loss of unique species in this biome (Araújo et al. 2005), many of which are yet unknown to science.The Cerrado biome presents the largest collects gap of Rutelinae in Bahia state.Cerrado covers 2,036,448 km 2 (representing 22% of the national territory), and is present in 12 Brazilian states.It is considered a hotspot of world biodiversity, with an extreme abundance of endemic species (MMA 2017).However, the Cerrado is the biome with the lowest percentage of areas of integral protection.Only 8.21% of the total territory is legally protected by Units of Conservation; of this total, 2.85% are Units of Conservation of Integral Protection and 5.36% are Units of Conservation of Sustainable Use, including Particular Reserve of Natural Heritage -RPPNs (0.07%) (MMA 2017).The findings presented above demonstrate the need to make more collects in the state, especially in Cerrado in the west region of the state, to enable a better understanding of the distribution, expanding the knowledge of the group.
With the results presented here there was an expressive increase, both in the richness of genera and species.After this study the number of genera increased to 23, with the new records of Byrsopolis Burmeister, Pseudodorysthetus Soula and Trizogeniates Ohaus; new distributional records of 30 species and 1 subspecies from Bahia state, and with 14 species, that will be described in subsequent papers, 10 of Leucothyreus (according to the consultation with a researcher, Seidel M., who is conducting the review of the genus), 2 of Lobogeniates (a genus in process of review by ASF) and 1 of Byrsopolis and Pelidnota.With respect to the number of registered species of Rutelinae in Bahia, was increased in more than a half, reaching 101 species and 17 subspecies.
This increase in the number of registered Rutelinae species demonstrates the importance of conducting inventories for group knowledge.In addition, the distribution of the Rutelinae locality records in the Bahia state in only 57 registered municipalities, which is equivalent to 13.67% of the total municipalities in the state, plus the gaps seen in the most richest and poorly known biomes, emphasizes the imminent need for new studies involving the Rutelinae for a better knowledge of fauna, not only in the biomes of this state, but in Brazil as a whole.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Location of the study area and geographic distribution records Rutelinae in the Bahia state.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Species richness of Rutelinae from Bahia state, gathering the literature data with the results presented in this study.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; MZFS -Collection Prof. Johann Becker, Museum of Zoology of Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Bahia, Brazil; and MHNBA/MZUFBA -Entomological Collection of Museum of Natural History/ Zoology of Bahia State/Universidade Federal da Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.