Comunidade de formigas (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) presentes em área urbanizada na cidade de Vassouras, RJ

Abstract

Over the years, the improper exploitation of natural resources has contributed to the loss of biodiversity by incorporating areas for agricultural production and logging, what has always been among the biggest contributors to the loss of biodiversity and fragmentation of ecosystems. The soil fauna can be exploited in the process of remediation and recovery as they have broad participation in the process, increasing the metabolic activity of the soil associated with microorganisms as well as indicator of extremely adverse situations, in cases such as contamination, degradation or soil quality as the arthropods are sensitive to changes in land use induced by agriculture or other anthropogenic disturbances. The effects of urbanization on ecosystems and species are still poorly understood in urban environments, even with recent studies, so the effects of anthropic action are not fully known and the effects of urbanization are poorly studied from the bioecological point of view. Thus, studies on the ant fauna present in squares and parks can help in projects that promote the maintenance and expansion of these areas, promoting the conservation of the urban ecosystem. The growing concern about environmental issues has led researchers looking for indicator organisms able to provide information on the degree of integrity of the environments in which they are found. Some studies have shown that ants can be used as indicators of environmental quality as they present wide geographical distribution, species are locally abundant , they have functional importance in various trophic levels , their taxonomy is quite explored in the scientific community , they occupy diverse niches in the ecosystem, can be classified into functional groups and correlated with biotic factors . Therefore , the study was conducted in the municipality of Vassouras, RJ, which being very fragmented, is presented itself as a fertile field for testing our hypotheses , aiming to carry out a survey of species in that city , to contribute to knowledge of diversity and community composition of these insects in the environment studied . Samples were collected in five areas and in a fragment of the Atlantic Forest, where in each area were allocated 20 traps baited with sardines and honey, approximately 10m apart from each other for about one hour in the field. In all urban sites were collected 25 morphospecies , belonging to 12 genera and five subfamilies . Myrmicinae was the most abundant subfamily in morphospecies (six genera/16 morphospecies). In the fragment 476 specimens were collected allocated in seven genera and 11 morphospecies. Corroborating the urban data , the subfamily Myrmicinae was the most abundant . Due to the higher frequency of species considered urban , the data corroborate the literature demonstrating the human disturbance and its impacts, and the effectiveness of the collecting method.