EFEITO DA FRAGMENTAÇÃO SOBRE A DIVERSIDADE FUNCIONAL DE FORMIGA EM MATAS RIPÁRIAS DO CERRADO

Abstract

Riparian forests (riparian forests or gallery forests) are plant formations on the banks of rivers, streams and springs, made up of the most varied plant formations. From an ecological point of view, these environments are of great importance as food sources and habitats for aquatic and terrestrial fauna. Brazilian ecosystems are extremely fragmented and agriculture has been identified as one of the main responsible for this fragmentation. The transformation and degradation of natural habitats caused by anthropic actions are considered the greatest threats to the conservation of biodiversity and to the functioning of ecosystems. Among the different groups of organisms that are commonly used to reveal the patterns of responses to disturbances caused in ecosystems, the most prominent are the ants. In our first chapter titled "Assessment of the multiple fall trap method for sampling ants in riparian forest areas", we evaluated the efficiency of using multiple traps of fall in ant collection in two sample strata in forest environments. In addition, we verified if the use of a second soil collection methodology, the Winkler extractor, would have the same efficiency as that of multiple traps. Our results showed that multiple fall traps are efficient in ant sampling in forest environments, and we suggest using the Winkler puller combined with the multiple fall traps for more comprehensive sampling. In our second chapter entitled "Influence of anthropogenic disturbances on the functional diversity of ants in riparian forests of the Cerrado", our objective was to evaluate the effect of the withdrawal of the connectivity of areas of riparian forests with the adjacent native matrix on the taxonomic and functional diversity of ants. Our results highlight that even small remnants of natural vegetation may have significant potential to maintain a functional and taxonomic diversity of ants within an agriculture-dominated matrix.