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. Bovine livestock is one of the most important sectors of Brazilian agribusiness, and consequently of Brazil's national economy 1. Over 80% of the herd depends on pastures as its major source of food. Pastures are a practical and economically efficient form of producing and offering food to cattle, since they are resistant to fluctuations in grain prices, guaranteeing relatively low costs of production 2,3. An important characteristic of the dynamics of Brazilian pastures has been the substitution of native pastures, composed of native grassland ecosystems in the Cerrado and Pampas, with pastures sown with exotic grass species, especially from the genus Brachiaria, which currently constitute over 50% Brazilian pastures 2. Intensive management of agricultural ecosystems and inappropriate pasture management, such as a lack of nutrient addition, result in the simplification of biological communities, and are the main cause of pasture degradation 4,5. In the search for production systems that minimise the effects of land degradation and increase the profit obtained by farmers, agroforests have emerged as an important alternative 6. Agroforests are increasingly used in Latin America to enhance biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. The adoption of agroforests in pastures, in the form of silvopastoral systems, creates an environment that buffers temperature extremes and is more comfortable for the animals, reduces erosion from runoff and wind and increases soil biomass, thus contributing to nutrient cycling 7. Furthermore, combining pastures with trees creates a diversity of microclimates that increases insect diversity 8. The effect of conversion to silvopastoral systems on specific insect groups has been studied previously 9...
