Translocação de fauna subterrânea para cavidades artificiais: análise espacial e modelagem baseada em agentes

Abstract

Brazil has a large speleological potential, but very little is known about its fauna. There is still little knowledge about the biology and ecology of the cave animals. This understanding is critical for a more effective development of management and conservation alternatives. In Brazil, the Decree 99556/90 (Art.2) establishes the protection of underground systems, however Decree 6640 states that full protection is only for caves showing maximum environmental relevance. In that context, it becomes necessary to consider alternatives for the conservation of these systems, which are increasingly threatened. One of these alternatives can be the wildlife translocation, which has been performed for several animal groups. However, there is only one record of cave fauna translocation, which involved the use of an already existing mine as receiving cavity of the translocated fauna. The first translocation experiment of cave fauna, which involved the construction of an artificial gallery, was undertaken by Dr. Rodrigo Lopes Ferreira in 2004. Thus, this dissertation presents the following main objectives: to describe the experiment conducted by Ferreira, highlighting the main stages of the gallery construction; to expand the knowledge of some species involved in the experiment by using Spatial Point Pattern Analysis, besides proposing a food web involving such species; to propose the development of an Agent Based Model (ABM) for the description of the system and the performance of forward predictions, which allow the evaluation of the effectiveness of the translocation experiment. It is expected that the presented results contribute to the evolution of the scientific knowledge on the biology and ecology of ferruginous underground systems and also for the development of strategies for the conservation of such systems.