Efeito do fogo na comunidade bentônica de um córrego de Cerrado

Abstract

The Cerrado is considered one of the largest Brazilian biomes. It is known to have a strong relationship with fire because of its accumulation of dry biomass on the surface of the soil that is often carried to aquatic environments. Benthic macroinvetebrates are animals that live in the bottom of rivers and streams can be used as environmental integrity bioindicators because they are sensitive to environmental variations. The objective of this work was to investigate the possible changes in the community structure of benthic macroinvertebrates in a Cerrado stream, located in the Triângulo Mineiro region before and after a fire event. The stream is located in the Panga Reserve, which had a fire event in September 2017, responsible for burning about 60 acres of reserve. Samples were collected in five stream sectors on different substrates before and after the fire event. The benthic macroinvertebrates found were identified and counted. The benthic community was characterized by abundance, taxa richness, EPT(Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Tricoptera) proportion, Chironomidae proportion, Shannon-Wiener Index (H '), Simpson’s Index (1-D) and Pielou Equitability (J'). Metrics were compared between periodss using the paired test. The community was also evaluated through Correspondence Analysis (CA) by determining the distribution patterns of taxa. In this study, no significant statistical differences were found in the descriptive metrics of the macroinvertebrate community. However, the correspondence analysis (CA) indicated differences in the composition of the taxa. The results obtained are indicative that the fire occurred in the gallery forest did not cause changes that could cause changes in the benthic community of the studied stream .