COMPOSIÇÃO E RIQUEZA DE FORMIGAS (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) EM UM FRAGMENTO DE MATA ATLÂNTICA NO ESTADO DA PARAÍBA, BRASIL.

Abstract

The ants are dominant in several ecosystems, having high diversity and abundance in the tropical region, being important in several ecosystemic functions, such as nutrient cycling, herbivorous and predation. Considering that biological surveys are fundamental to promote the conservation of forest remnants and the ants are important components of tropical biodiversity, the objective of this work was to conduct an inventory and investigate the richness of morphospecies of ants associated to the soil in relation to climatic variables of the Ecological Reserve Mata do Pau Ferro, Areia - Paraíba. In order to carry out this survey of mimercofauna, two collections were carried out per month from January to December of 2012, using 16 pitfall traps, on a 3,6ha grid. The traps were active for 48 hours. The collected material was stored in pots with 70% alcohol and sent to the Laboratory of Invertebrate Zoology of the Center of Agricultural Sciences of the UFPB, for further screening of the insects. A total of 60 morphospecies of ants were collected throughout the year, belonging to seven subfamilies and 21 genera, being distributed per month as follows: January (10), February (8), March (17), April (8), May (16), June (8), July (13), August (16), September (10), October (17), November (15), and December (25). From the richness observed in the sample period, a Jankknife 1st Order richness test was performed to estimate the possible richness of the fragment, and it was seen that the estimated wealth, except for the first month of collection, exceeded the observed richness, With variations that were of 10 species in the month with the lowest estimate to 49.89 in the month of highest estimate. It was verified how the ant community behaved in relation to climatic variables, precipitation and temperature, if correlated with them, as well as if, for the sample area, precipitation and temperature were correlated, and there was no correlation between precipitation And temperature, as well as, between temperature and mimercofauna, however there was a significant correlation between the ant community and precipitation. Observed the variation of the mimercofauna according to the seasonal periods, noting that the composition was relatively different between the periods, when 31 morphospecies of ants were sampled for the rainy season, of which nine occurred exclusively in this period and in the dry season there were recorded 51 morphospecies, 29 of which were recorded only at this time. Key