Impacts of the conversion of native grassland to soybean monoculture on the epiedaphic springtail fauna of the Brazilian Pampa
Bioindicators, Collembola, ecology, inventory, mesofauna
The edafic fauna has great importance for the dynamics of the soil ecosystems. Among these faunal components of can be highlighted the Collembola, small arthropods that present great sensitivity to changes of physicochemical nature in the environment in which they are inserted. This characteristic makes them good indicators of soil changes. The Pampa biome is a highly diverse grassland environment, little protected and sensitive to environmental changes. Thus, this study used the ecological indices of the populations of Collembola to identify the alterations of the native grassland conversion in the Pampa biome in soybean monoculture. The Collembola fauna was compared in nine paired grassland and soybean sites in four different municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul. The specimens were screened, separated into morphospecies, counted under a steromicroscope and identified under a common optical microscope, thus generating a matrix of data for comparison between the areas. The analyses indicated significant changes in the composition of the communities, and in the indices of abundance and Shannon’s diversity, but did not indicate significant differences in richness and Pielou's evenness index . A strong influence of plant community patterns was observed in the diversity indexes of the populations of Collembola These indices show the impact of native grassland conversion in soybean monoculture in the populations of Collembola.