Aves como biomonitoras da qualidade ambiental em fragmentos florestais do cerrado

Abstract

Human actions, such as fragmentation and urbanization, are considered one of the major threat to global biodiversity, and may cause drastic changes in the structure and composition of flora and fauna. Due to the sensitivity of birds to changes of environmental conditions, they are considered excellent indicators of environmental quality because they respond quickly to changes in local, regional and global level. There are several monitoring practices of populations held in natural and disturbed habitats, such as the evaluation of the Fluctuating Asymmetry (FA), analysis of body condition through the Relative Mass Index (RMI) and the micronucleus analysis. Thus, studies evaluating the responses of this group are relevant to the assessment environments in various degrees of conservation. The aim of this work were: to determine whether the FA values, RMI and micronucleus vary between species, areas and feeding guilds. Besides, analyze from these three tools that you can use birds as biomonitoras. The study was conducted in four fragments of semideciduous forests of the Triângulo Mineiro, where the birds were captured with mist nets between 2013 and 2014. We collected 406 individuals of 50 species at approximately 6,400 hours*network. For FA and RMI analysis were used 304 individuals of 17 species and nine families, and micronucleus analysis used 245 individuals of 15 species and eight families, because it is necessary the minimum number of five individuals. The 17 species showed FA (wings / tarsus). There was no significant difference in FA values (wings / tarsus) between species, but there was between the areas. There was also a difference between the feeding guilds for wings, where omnivores showed the highest values. The RMI of birds differed between species, the areas and feeding guilds, being omnivores with the highest RMI values, followed by, frugivorous and insectivorous. Of the 15 species analyzed only Neopelma pallescens had not micronucleus. There was a significant difference in the frequency of micronuclei between species, the areas and feeding guilds in São José, being omnivores guild with higher frequency of micronuclei. With this work, we concluded that the tools FA, RMI and micronucleus can be used successfully in birds, and they can be used as biomonitoras.