Ecologia das interações foréticas entre ácaros e besouros escarabeíneos

Abstract

The commensal association between mites and dung beetles, known as phoresy, is a widely observed phenomenon in both natural and anthropogenic ecosystems. In this symbiotic relationship, dung beetles serve as carriers for free-living mites with limited mobility, facilitating their access to more favorable resources and conditions. Despite the ecological significance of this interaction, there has been a limited research effort addressing the intricacies of this ecological relationship. This thesis seeks to address this knowledge gap by conducting a comprehensive examination of how intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence these interactions, with a particular focus on utilizing phoretic interactions as a valuable tool for assessing ecosystem quality. The thesis is structured into two distinct sections: the first encompasses a comprehensive general introduction, providing an overarching framework for the themes explored in this work, while the second section comprises two research papers. The first paper delves into the investigation of morphological, behavioral, and ecological factors that impact mite species richness, as well as the intensity and prevalence of the interactions between mites and their dung beetle carriers. Additionally, it explores whether these dynamics are influenced by the environmental context in which these organisms are situated. The findings reveal that mite species richness and interaction intensity are influenced by a sort of host characteristics, encompassing both general patterns and isolated system-specific factors. However, the prevalence of these interactions remains unexplained by the variables analyzed. The second paper focuses on evaluating the impact of converting primary forests into exotic pastures on the interaction networks involving phoretic mites and dung beetles. Furthermore, it investigates whether these interaction networks exhibit any response to ecological restoration efforts by converging their properties towards those of reference systems. The results indicate that land use changes have a detrimental effect on species richness, interaction diversity, the number of links per species, and the overall robustness of interaction networks. The ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems was not fully able to restructure the properties of interaction networks to match those of primary forests, except concerning robustness in initial restoration areas. These investigations significantly contribute to advancing our understanding of phoretic interactions, thereby contributing to the conservation of mite species and their ecological functions. Furthermore, these studies offer essential insights that can inform more effective conservation strategies, underscoring the pivotal role of phoretic interaction networks in supporting species diversity and ecosystem functionality.