Last Tuesday, 30th September, Cristina Araújo successfully passed her viva at Fundão, and now she’s a brand new doctor from the Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro.

Cris did her PhD work on the organization of dung beetle communities at the altitudinal gradient of Itatiaia National Park (one of the highest elevations of Brazil), under the supervision of Ricardo Monteiro and myself, with the invaluable help of Júlio Louzada and his team at Universidade Federal de Lavras. Apart from the necessary description of the fauna, Cris has evaluated the determinants of local coexistence of Scarabaeinae species from different perspectives, from niche requirements to co-occurrence networks, that will be published in the forthcoming months.

Parabéns Cris!!!!