Abstract

AZEVEDO, Francisco Roberto de; MOURA, Maria Andréia Rodrigues de; ARRAIS, Maria Solidade Barbosa  and  NERE, Daniel Rodrigues. Composition of entomofauna on the Araripe National Forest in different vegetation types and year seasons. Rev. Ceres [online]. 2011, vol.58, n.6, pp. 740-748. ISSN 0034-737X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0034-737X2011000600010.

The occurrence of insects has great ecological significance and is related to environmental factors, food availability, and refuge. We assess the composition of the entomofauna in different vegetation types (cerrado, carrasco and humid forest), and seasons in the Araripe National Forest, Crato-CE, by weekly collections made in the dry season (September to December) and in the rainy season (April to July), through McPhail, pitfall and yellow tray traps. Many Coleoptera occur in the dry season, acting as pollinators, phytophagous, detritivore and decomposers of organic matter in the rainy season. Already, the Diptera is abundant in the rainy season, when fruit flies are found, decomposing animal carcasses, organic matter and predators. The Calliphoridae family predominate in the Cerrado, the Tachinidae in the Carrasco and Tephritidae in the Humid Forest. The Orthoptera Gryllidae predominate in the Humid Forest and the Hymenoptera Formicidae in the Carrasco and Cerrado in the dry season. Therefore, there is a satisfactory balance in the structure and functioning of the Araripe National Forest as each group plays an important ecological role on the vegetation, in the different seasons of the year.

Keywords : Biodiversity; indicators ecological; ecosystems; forest insects.