Como a aplicação de iscas formicidas e variáveis microclimáticas afetam a comunidade de formigas e a remoção de sementes em fragmentos de florestas secundárias adjacentes à eucaliptais?

Abstract

The diversity of organisms is affected by habitat fragmentation due to increase of cultivated areas. Among these organisms, ants play important roles in their environments, such as influencing soil properties and structuring, population control, seed dispersal, herbivory, among other functions. However, some ants are pests in eucalyptus plantations, being the target of the application of formicide baits. These baits are considered non - selective for ants in general, therefore, this work verified the influence of these baits and microclimatic variables on the richness and composition of ants and the rate of seed removal in native forests adjacent to eucalyptus, in Atlantic Forest domain. Twelve forest areas were divided into three treatments: no application of the formicide bait (SI), with the application of the formicide only into eucalyptus (IE) and application of the formicide into eucalyptus and 50 meters into native forest (IF ). One transect was arranged in each area. In each transect they were marked six points with distance of zero, 20, 40, 80, 120 and 160 meters in relation to the border. At these points we install pitfals for 48 hours and put 50 artificial seeds. The evaluations were done in four periods: 30 days before and 30, 120 and 180 days after the application of the baits. We used the richness and composition of ants and the rate of seed removal as variables in the analysis performed. There were no differences in treatments over time. Also we did not verify relation of the wealth and the composition of ants and the rate of removal with microclimatic variables and distance in relation to the border. We conclude that microclimatic factors and application of formicide baits into eucalyptus plantations and 50 meters into adjacent native forests do not influence the richness and composition of ants and the rate of seed removal of the native forests.