Abstract
Silviculture can be considered a sustainable alternative to the extraction of wood from natural forests in Brazil. However, the high demand for wood products has decreased the area of natural Cerrado due to land transformation for forestry activities. This transformation could lead to the loss of species, including insects that cannot tolerate the new environment dominated by exotic plant species. This study aims to evaluate whether the presence of an extensive Eucalyptus silviculture in the Brazilian Cerrado decreases the integrity of nearby riparian environments and, consequently, decreases odonate diversity. Thirteen ponds were selected in patches of Cerrado embedded within a matrix of Eucalyptus silviculture in order to assess habitat integrity of ponds and their riparian zones and collect adult odonates. The physical integrity of the study sites was measured using a Habitat Integrity Index (HII) designed to determine the degree of conservation of aquatic environments. The HII of the study sites varied between 0.44 and 0.80, indicating differences in the degree of conservation. Therefore, a positive relationship was found between odonate richness and abundance and HII, and between the abundance of zygopterans and anisopterans and HII. These findings may be due to the fact that these insects are adapted to the natural resources maintained at the most conserved habitats, and which were lost in degraded riparian zones, such as the presence of aquatic vegetation and a diversity of organic debris on pond banks. We conclude that the conversion of natural areas to Eucalyptus silviculture can alter the integrity of nearby riparian zones and, consequently, odonate diversity.
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Acknowledgments
We express our gratitude to company personal who permitted access to the farm and provided maps and protection equipment, thereby making our fieldwork possible. The work was also supported by: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) through a Master’s fellowship to the first author and to J.C. Santos (CNPq 312752/2018-0); PRONEX (Centers of Excellence Program) through financial support; Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia e Conservação de Recursos Naturais (PPGECRN) and Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU), through additional funding and logistic support. We are grateful to DSV and FAAL for help with identifying specimens and providing information about them; personal from the Laboratório de Ecologia-Evolução & Biodiversidade at UFU for field and laboratorial support; and ICMBio for issuing the collection permit (Nr. 28398-1).
Funding
This work was funded partially by the DURATEX Company. The work was also supported by: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) through a Master’s fellowship to the first author and to J.C. Santos (CNPq 312752/2018-0); PRONEX (Centers of Excellence Program) through financial support; and Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU), through additional funding and logistic support.
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Borges, L.R., Barbosa, M.S., Carneiro, M.A.A. et al. Habitat integrity drives Odonata diversity in Eucalyptus-dominated landscape. Environ Monit Assess 193, 12 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08740-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08740-1