Comunidade noturna e diurna de Coleoptera (Insecta) em um fragmento de Mata Atlântica

Abstract

The beetles (Coleoptera) are amongst the most numerous and diverse animals on the Planet. Many factors influence this dominance, among them are, the presence of though fore wings (elytra), holometabolism and their strong relationship with angiosperms plants. There are a lot of studies that verify the destribuition of Coleoptera, analyzing different factors like, phytophysiognomic differences, levels of vegetation succession, altitude, anthropic actions in the enviroment and seasonality. However, studies about the daily activity, identifying which species are diurnal or noctural are yet to be done with this order as a whole, only a few families and species have this kind of studies. Thus the objective of this paper identify if there is a difference between diurnal and nocturnal fauna of Coleptera captured with Malaise Trap. For thit purpose, three Malaise traps were installed 10m from the edge of the forest fragment characterized as Ombrófila Mista Montana localized at the city of Realeza, Paraná. The material was sampled at dawn and at dusk, during three straight days (72h), once a week, between the months of November of 2022 and March of 2023. The beetles were sorted, pinned and are stored at Coleção Entomológica UFFS-RE. In total, 293 beetles belonging to 20 families were collected. The most rich and abundant Family was Mordellidae with 113 individuals belonging to 45 morphospecies. Other notable abundant families are Cerambycidae, Curculionidae, Elateridae and Nitidulidae and related to richness the families Curcilionidae, Cerambycidae and Elateridae are highlighted. Less than 15% of the morphospecies collected had more than three individuals, factor which interfered with the characterization of diurnal or noctural fauna. There was significant difference amongs the number of sampled individuals during daily and night periods. Nevertheless, as the number of beetles collected was low, it cannot be said that they are diurnal or nocturnal. Factors such as proximity of the forest fragmente to agricultural crops and long periods of drought could have influenced the low number of individuals sampled.