Differences in the insect fauna associated to a monocultural pasture and a silvopasture in Southeastern Brazil

Abstract

A major challenge for global agriculture is the reduction of the environmental impacts caused by meat and dairy production, and the conversion of monocultural pastures to silvopastoral systems has emerged as an important ally in this process. In order to understand the effects of this conversion we analysed 4 years of sampling of the insect fauna from a conventional monocultural pasture and a silvopastoral system in Minas Gerais, Brazil. We aimed to determine whether the changes caused by the conversion affected the abundance, richness and diversity of the insect orders found in the two systems. Total abundance, richness and diversity did not differ between the two systems, but we detected a significant difference in community composition. Several insect orders showed differences in either abundance, richness or diversity between the two systems, and several families of Hymenoptera, which contains pollinators and natural enemies, showed important increases in the silvopasture. Conversion of monocultural pastures to silvopastures can have important consequences on insect fauna involved in essential ecosystem functions, and the implementation of silvopastures at larger scales has the potential to benefit biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision at the landscape scale.