Diversidade e composição da comunidade de formigas da Reserva Biológica Guaribas e suas aplicações para a conservação da Mata Atlântica no estado da Paraíba, Brasil

Abstract

Community studies have been developed in several areas of the study of Ecology in the most diverse Ecosystems. In the Atlantic Forest these studies are important because this particular biome is the home to great biological richness and endemism and it has also been suffering from fragmentation and devastation. Studies involving richness are important tools to help understanding the changes of different components of diversity in the ecosystem. As ants are dominant in most terrestrial ecosystems, studies that involve the diversity and composition of communities in forest environments have gained prominence in recent years because of their importance, both for the knowledge of the local fauna and for the identification of processes that explain the functioning of ecosystems. Therefore, the aim of this work was to discover and inventory the diversity of the ant community in two different size areas of Atlantic Forest with distinct historical processes, in two seasons of the year. The collections were carried out in the Guaribas Biological Reserve located in the municipalities of Rio Tinto and Mamanguape, in the state of Paraíba, Brazil, in two seasons of the year, rainy (July) and drought (November) in the year 2015. Three methods of collection, Winkler, Pitfall and sardine baits were used in two extracts (soil and tree) This material was screened, assembled and identified at the lowest possible taxonomic level. A curve of species accumulation was made and the composition among the areas was verified through the analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) and non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS). The Areas’ richness in each collection was compared using ANOVA. A total of 131 species and morphospecies of ants were collected, distributed in 9 subfamilies and 44 genera. For the Winkler collection, in each area, 50 samples of 1m² litter were collected along a pre-established trail, 25 in the rainy season and 25 in the dry season. A total of 81 species of ants were collected using this methodology, 68 in area 1 and 55 in area 2. The Chao 2 richness estimator suggests that local richness is 76.4 at Area 1 and 68.7 at Area 2. It was observed, through the analyzes of richness and similarity, that the communities of the two areas are different, but complementary, for Winkler’ collections. For the Pitfall collections, 50 traps were installed in each area, 25 of them in each station, 68 species were collected with this methodology, 49 in area 1 and 52 in area 2; Chao 2 estimator was 119.8 at Area 1 and 88, 39 at Area 2. The third methodology used was the sardine bait in two extracts, 100 baits were spread in each area, 50 in each season, 25 of these were baited in the soil and 25 in the vegetation, this collection was made in manner of reaching qualitative results, because some ants cannot be collected with Pitfall or Winkler. With this methodology 61 species of ants were collected, four species were collected only with this methodology, because they are arboreal ants. A significant difference was found between richness and species composition between areas and between the two seasons. It was observed that the composition of the species is influenced by the fragmentation and larger areas suffer a minor seasonality influence.