Coleoptera Diversity and Soil Properties in Land Use Systems

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the abundance and diversity of Coleoptera in five land use systems (LUS) and the soil properties that explain the distribution of these organisms. Uses involved native forest (NF), Eucalyptus plantation (EP), perennial pasture (PA), integrated crop-livestock (ICL) and no-tillage (NT) in western Santa Catarina, Brazil. Coleopterans were sampled by the methods of pitfall traps and soil monoliths during the winter and summer. Regardless of the LUS, 1,441 individuals were captured, with Staphylinidae being the most representative family (~47%). The use of NF showed higher abundances of coleopterans. The land use systems PA, NT, and ICL obtained high values of diversity of Coleoptera families, depending on the method and season of collection. The distribution of families was influenced by the sampling season, and some soil properties such as biopores, water content and phosphorus can explain the variation of abundance among the LUS.

Soil macrofauna in areas with different successional vegetation stages after Eucalyptus grandis harvest in Brazil

“…Of the 25,789 individuals found during the study, 7,418 were collected during autumn, 7,320 in summer, 5,553 in winter, and 5,498 in spring (Table 3). Several studies have also found that the distribution of soil fauna is influenced by the sampling period (Pompeo et al, 2020;Góes et al, 2021). The largest number of individuals in all seasons occurred in NR7 and NR5, differing statistically from C1, which had the lowest number of individuals.…”

“…In this context, monitoring of soil macrofauna is a method of assessing the functioning of the forest system since it is closely associated with the processes of decomposition and nutrient cycling at the soilplant interface (Correia & Oliveira, 2000;Mello et al, 2009). Several studies have focused on macrofauna as indicators of soil quality, with the aim of understanding how soil uses interfere with their distribution (Oliveira, Zeppelini, Sousa, Baretta, & Klauberg, 2020;Pompeo, Oliveira, Klauberg, Mafra, & Baretta, 2020;Pereira et al, 2021). In the Vale do Itajaí Region in Santa Catarina State, Brazil, few studies have evaluated the populations of terrestrial invertebrates as indicators of soil quality (M. A.…”