Caracterização da artropodofauna em horta medicinal agroecológica

Abstract

The knowledge of entomofauna in biodiverse environments is a fundamental step, as insects perform the most varied ecological functions, both in natural systems and in agroecological agroecosystems. In addition, the quantification of insects may inform the need for management tactics to keep populations in balance, especially those that cause damage to crops of agricultural importance. Thus, the objective of this study was to survey and characterize the entomofauna associated with an agroecological medicinal garden environment at CECA-UFAL, using different collection techniques. The agroecological medicinal garden is a project for the cultivation of herbal medicines for seedling distribution. The techniques used to survey the entomofauna were by active collections, through the manual collection of insects; and passive collections, with the use of traps, among them: yellow tray traps, blue trays traps, red tray traps, pitfall trap with water and pitfall trap containing beer. In all, 2.433 specimens distributed in eight orders and 35 families were collected, differing according to the used technique, with the manual collection being responsible for the largest amount of insects collected/evaluation. The most frequent orders in the entomofauna survey were Hymenoptera, with expressive presence of Formicidae, besides Diptera and Coleoptera. When evaluating the efficiency of the traps, from the diversity of orders and families collected, the yellow tray traps were more efficient in the entomofauna survey, followed by the pitfall trap containing water.