Levantamento populacional de besouros coprófagos (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) em uma unidade de conservação do Leste do Maranhão

Population survey of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) in a conservation unit in Eastern Maranhão

Abstract

The order Coleoptera, in turn, has a wide variety of shapes, sizes, ecologi-cal strategies and habitats. The dung beetles belong to the superfamily Scarabaeoidea, fami-ly Scarabaeidae, subfamily Scarabaeinae and are popularly known as dung beetles. The main objective of the present work was to carry out a population survey of dung beetles (Coleop-tera: Scarabaeide) in a Conservation Unit in Eastern Maranhão. The experimental area under study was divided in three ways: Roadside (edge); Stricto stricto savanna and riparian forest. To carry out the collections of dung beetles, two collections were carried out, one in October (2020) and another in May (2021), using pitifull-type traps, remaining in the field for a peri-od of four days (96 hours). For statistical analyses, the ANAFAU program was used. For the analysis of wealth and accumulation curve used the EstimateS program. A total of 393 specimens of Scarabaeidae were counted, 145 individuals for Area 1 distributed into eight species, 149 individuals for Area 2 distributed into eight species and 99 individu-als for Area 3 distributed into eight species. observed species for all areas with eight species respectively. The diversity of species among the three studied phytophysiognomies was ana-lyzed (Shannon-Wiener), Area 3 had the highest diversity index, being confirmed by the Pielou index (J). The richness estimator and the accumulation curves obtained for both areas revealed that the sampling effort was not enough to fully quantify the species and that, therefore, the richness of Scarabaeidae from the Inhamum APA is undersampled.