Respostas das comunidades de invertebrados à heterogeneidade de habitat em ambientes cavernícolas

Abstract

This work was developed to investigate the influence of substrate, temperature, humidity, distance from the entrance and the influence of tourism on the composition and richness of cave invertebrates in different sample scales, in order to contribute to the knowledge, management and conservation of fauna of underground invertebrates. The work is composed of two articles written according to the rules of scientific journals. The first article was elaborated according to the norms of the International Journal of Speleology whose objective was to evaluate which environmental variables guide the composition and richness of cave invertebrate communities in different sample scales in two caves. It was concluded that composition and richness had more influence of environmental variables related to habitat determination and their specific characteristics, varying according to the sampling scale, indicating that habitat heterogeneity play an important role in the structuring of cave invertebrate communities. at different spatial scales and distance from entry, and combined sampling methods may better characterize biodiversity. The second chapter was written according to the norms of the journal “Tourism Management” aiming to compare the composition and richness of the invertebrate community in the tourist and non-tourist areas and to determine which environmental variables influence the richness and composition in these two areas, at different scales. sampling. The results show that the tourist area of the cave is more homogeneous in the components of habitat and composition of fauna compared to non-tourist area. No significant differences were observed in fauna richness, habitat components and substrate diversity between the two areas. However, there was a difference in fauna composition between the two areas, which may be indicative of tourism activity indirectly influencing fauna composition. This chapter also showed that different substrate components influence the composition and richness of fauna in the tourist and non-tourist areas. In the tourist area the physical elements of the habitat were more important in determining the composition and richness of the fauna. It is recommended to avoid trampling in places where substrate characteristics are important for determining fauna composition and richness.