Land use change and fire in Amazonia: impacts on invertebrates and their ecosystem functions

• Ano de defesa: 2021
• Autor(a) principal: Ribeiro, Vanessa Soares
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Viçosa
• Palavras-chave em Português: Natureza - Influência do homem - Amazônia; Mudanças paisagísticas - Amazônia; Invertebrados - Comportamento; Besouros; Formigas; Térmita; Ciências Biológicas
• Link de acesso: https://locus.ufv.br//handle/123456789/29759; https://doi.org/10.47328/ufvbbt.2021.001

Anthropic disturbances such as land-use change and forest fires are responsible for modifying natural landscape structure. In the Southern part of the Amazon basin, changes in landscape structure due to anthropic actions occur intensely. In this region, the conversion of natural forests to agricultural lands and the increase of fires, either accidental or not, are responsible for modifying environmental characteristics. Changes in environmental characteristics are responsible for changes in the structure of communities and, consequently, altering ecosystem functions and services provided by different organisms. Invertebrates promote several ecosystem functions, such as secondary seed dispersal, nutrient cycling and organic matter decomposition. In this thesis, I investigated how anthropic disturbances in southern Amazonia affect ecosystem functions performed by different invertebrate groups. In the first chapter, I investigated how conversion of forests to agriculture alter ecosystem functions performed by ants and dung beetles in riparian forests. I evaluated predation promoted by ants, seed dispersal by ants and dung beetles, and dung removal in forested and cropland catchments. I showed that both groups suffered changes in species composition, but only in ants these changes altered ecosystem functions (seed dispersal). In the second chapter, I investigated the role of termites to organic matter decomposition in burned forests to understand which mechanisms explain possible variations in this ecosystem function. I showed increase in termite abundance, decrease of termite predation by ants, accompanied by increase in organic matter decomposition in burned forests. I concluded that anthropic disturbances altered ecosystem functions performed by invertebrates after anthropic disturbances, and these functions are an important factor for maintenance of forests and biodiversity. Keywords: Anthropic disturbance Ecosystem functions. Ants. Dung beetles. Termites.