Revirando o passado: o que a coleção entomológica do DSE/UFPB conta sobre a história dos besouros no Brasil

Abstract

The biological collections concentrate in their collections a great amount of unpublished information, with at least 12 thousand of the Coleoptera sp ecimens deposited in the Entomological Collection of the DSE that are still unknown to science, as a large part of this data has not yet been published. Coleoptera is the largest order of insects, with around 400,000 species serving the popular beetles, fireflies, ladybugs and longicorns. The present work aimed to analyze the origin labels of Coleoptera specimens from the DSE Entomological Collection, identifying them in the family and based on the data obtained, knowing their distribution and relationships with the environments, and consequently carrying out their registration and cataloging in a database of specific data. In addition, compare the collection of the DSE Entomological Collection, sub-collection of Coleoptera, with the main entomological collections of beetles in Brazil. Data from 12,531 specimens, comprising 36 families, were registered and digitized. The best represented family is Scarabaeidae, accounting for more than 63% of the entire collection. Specimens from nine different states were observed, the majority from Paraíba (N = 8,685 of 30 Families) and from seven different environments, with the majority of specimens recorded in Caatinga (N = 6,600) and Atlantic Forest (N = 4,251). This amount is due to the increase in material coming mainly from researchers at the UFPB itself, especially from the 2000s onwards. The DSE Entomological Collection, despite being recent in relation to other Brazilian entomological collections, is among the ten best collections in Brazil with regard to the sub-collection of beetles, being one of the best for the record of coleopterofauna in the Northeast, both in relation to the sampled states and the biomes represented. When considering only one Scarabaeidae family, representing more than two thirds of the specimens in the collection, it is configured as one of the six largest in Brazil, with the best representation for the state of Paraíba in terms of diversity of these beetles.