Padrões de Diversidade de Muscidae (Insecta, Diptera) na Planície Costeira do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil

Abstract

The fragmentation of natural environments is a major concern among conservation ecologists nowadays, especially in areas with a great diversity of habitats as the coastal plains of Rio Grande do Sul. In order to provide the basis to the managers responsible for the maintenance of natural areas, as well as to develop the knowledge of the Muscidae family in the southern Brazil, this study aimed to determine the biodiversity of the Muscidae family, in addition to proposing a method to evaluate the pattern of the species-area relationship (SAR) without using a different sampling effort between the areas of different sizes. To do that, 140 Malaise traps were installed distributed in 35 areas of five regions in the Coastal Plains. Each region was composed of seven areas with four traps at proportional distances. A total of 6102 individuals were collected distributed among 120 species/morphspecies in the five regions. Based on the lists it can be stated the degree of conservation and the anthropic influence on the studied areas, mainly by the presence of the species of Muscinae and Coenosiinae. The similarity between the communities of Muscidae was determined by the proximity of the collection places or by the climatic conditions of the period, and it was also observed a positive relationship in the species-area relationship for the linear and logistic models. Although the model with the power function is not significant, it showed coefficients that allow the interpretation of the types of fragments that occur in the coastal plains of RS.