Biodiversity and insights into the conservation of Heteroptera from protected natural areas.

DELLAPÉ, PABLO M.

Bogotá

Workshop; III Workshop Sul-Americano em Heteroptera; 2017

Although the majority of threatened species are likely to be tropical insects, knowledge of the diversity,ecological role and impact of insect biodiversity loss on ecosystem processes is very limited. Specimensbelonging to four families of Heteroptera: Pentatomidae, Coreidae, Alydidae and Rhopalidae, werecollected from a protected area in the Paraná Forest, the largest ecoregion of the Atlantic Forest, inArgentina. The assemblages were characterized and the biodiversity estimated, and they were comparedwith the assemblages found in five other protected areas in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. In our studyarea, Pentatomidae had the greatest richness and diversity; Coreidae was the second most diverse family,with highest sampling deficit, highest percentage of singletons, and lowest inventory completeness; andRhopalidae was the best sampled family with asymptotic rarefaction curves. We explored the applicationof the Species Conservation Importance index, following four criteria, to evaluate the relative importanceof the pentatomid species studied and its usefulness for assigning conservation values to areas. We foundsimilar Site Conservation Values among the six areas and noted that the use of criteria was limited by thelack of information, being crucial to increase the knowledge of most of the species.