Ground-active beetles as indicators of biodiversity conservation in Tierra del Fuego National Park

MV LENCINAS; G MARTÍNEZ PASTUR; R SOLER ESTEBAN; JA CÓRDOBA; G ZALAZAR

BARILOCHE

Congreso; VI SOUTHERN CONNECTION CONGRESS; 2010

Patagonian insect diversity is mostly endemic and includes relevant relictual species. Tierra del Fuego National Park (TDFNP) is the only one National Park which protects natural ecosystems in the Island. However, the biodiversity status remains unknown to evaluate their effectiveness. The aim was to analyze the conservation effectiveness of the southern area of TDFNP compared to environmental types outside the park, through the study of the ground-active beetles (GAB) as indicators. 120 pitfall set traps 82 / 150 were placed in forested and non-forested environment types. Data were analyzed with NMS, PERMANOVA and PERMDISP. 82 GAB morphospecies were identified, which 12% was only collected inside TDFNP, 46% only outside and 42% was shared. Ordination analyses showed differences between inside-outside TDFNP GAB assemblages and among environment types. Particularly, significant differences were detected for centroid position (F=7.09, p=