Potencial de conservação dos sistemas agroflorestais de cacau na Amazônia oriental: diversidade taxonômica e funcional de Scarabaeinae (Coleoptera)

Abstract

Tropical forests are suffering intense human interference, causing high rates of degradation and habitat conversion, even though they shelter a significant portion of biodiversity and are essential for the maintenance of ecosystem provision, regulation, support and cultural services, on a local and global scale. The degradation and conversion of habitats in the Amazon, mainly due to agricultural activities, are historically accompanied by disorderly territorial occupation. In this scenario, the state of Pará contributed with almost 40% of the total deforestation of the Legal Amazon in the period from 2004 to 2021, and historically the municipality of São Félix do Xingu is the one that contributes the most to deforestation. Groups of organisms such as dung beetles from the Scarabaeinae subfamily (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), which perform fundamental ecological functions in the ecosystem, are subject to these changes, being negatively impacted. One of the ways to promote socioeconomic development combined with the conservation of ecosystem processes is the use of agroforestry systems (SAF), where profitability can reach seven times more per hectare occupied, when compared to pasture systems. Therefore, the objective of this Dissertation was to evaluate the conservation potential of agroforestry systems based on the taxonomic and functional diversity of dung beetles, using pasture areas (highly modified environment) and native forest (more conserved environment) as a control for comparison. . Through this study it was possible to conclude that agroforestry systems managed to maintain biodiversity conservation, showing that they can be an interesting alternative when well planned for the search for sustainability, integrating economic, environmental and social aspects. Given this contextualization, this research becomes extremely important not only in the context of Pará, but for all humid tropical forests with similar anthropic pressure, since SAF's are a means of sustainable production, indicated as one of the approaches to achieve the second Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations (Zero hunger and sustainable agriculture).