Forest regeneration affects litter fungivorous thrips fauna (Insecta: Thysanoptera) in Atlantic forest

• Autor(a) principal: Santos, Mírian do Vale
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Cavalleri, Adriano, Silva Jr., Juvenal Cordeiro
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Acta Brasiliensis (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://revistas.ufcg.edu.br/ActaBra/index.php/actabra/article/view/415

Forest regeneration can affect the soil-dwelling insect fauna by promoting an increase in tree diversity and accelerating the accumulation of litter biomass in this environment. This study evaluated the effect of forest regeneration of Atlantic Forest fragments on the fungus-feeding thrips community. In each fragment, two treatments were selected: (i) intermediate successional stage (ISS) and (ii) early successional stage (ESS). Each treatment had three transects, each one with 10 sampling units, comprising 240 sampling units. We sampled 221 adult thrips, 135 individuals in the ISS, and 86 individuals in the ESS. We found 35 Thysanoptera species in 15 genera, all of them belonging to Phlaeothripidae. Abundance, richness, and Shannon’s diversity were higher in the ISS than in the ESS. The low number of individuals and high species richness suggests a remarkable distribution of thrips fauna in the litter. Although some taxa were more related to ISS, species composition structure did not differ between successional stages. Our study indicates that the fungivorous thrips fauna associated with litter was affected by the different natural regeneration states, suggesting that these fungivorous insects are sensitive to different successional stages.