Diversidade de Odonata e sua relação com diferentes níveis de perturbação em ambientes aquáticos em uma área de Cerrado do Triângulo Mineiro

Abstract

The dragonflies and damselflies (Insecta: Odonata) are represented in majority by insects that have part of their life cicle associated with freshwater habitats. They need those ambients to reproduce, since their larvae phase is aquatic. In lotic or lentic systems, males demarcate an area as territory, based in the resources needed for their offsprings development. Female individuals approaches of the water bodies to copulate and oviposition. The eggs can be laid on the water’s surface or in aquatic plants’ parts. For the development and survival of the nymphs, an aquatic environment that possess some kinds of resources is necessary, that can be lost as agricultural business advance upon natural ecossystems. This dissertation relates the Odonata diversity located in a Farm where the principal agricultural activity is the eucalyptus’ farming, with just a few preserved native plants and freshwater environments with different conservation levels. We made a survey of species, and the diversity found were correlated with the habitat conservation levels, with the wish to verify if the different levels of habitat conservation can influence the richness and abundance of these insects. There were found 37 species, including a new undescribed specie. Rarefaction analysis indicates that the area has capacity to harbour more species. The richness and abundance of Odonata were higher in more preserved habitats, due to the possession of some characteristics that are essential for the survival of Odonata species in those habitats, as a preserved riparian forests, diversity of aquatic plants, water bodies with physical structures that makes colonization possible, considerable gap from the eucaliptus’ farming, absence of direct human interfence, as others. This study showed the importance of preserving aquatic environments, considering the riparian zones around, for the conservation of the aquatic insects, such dragonflies and damselflies.