The cultivation of palm oil or palm oil (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) is a promising alternative for the recovery of degraded areas in the Brazilian Amazon, and promote the establishment of man in the field. However, when established in monoculture systems presents favorable conditions for the emergence and proliferation of insect pests, especially borers and defoliators. Thus, this research aimed to identify and quantify the diversity of insect pests and their natural enemies in three different systems of cultivation of oil palm in the city of Tome-Acu, Para, between May 2009 and January 2010. Two properties of oil palm cultivated as main crop in agroforestry (SAF) with different combinations of land preparation. The third study area was a monoculture oil palm, characterizing the current model of palms growing in the Amazon region. In all areas studied palm oil showed similar age and were monitored during May, June, October, December 2009 and January 2010. Was evaluated in the different systems, the diversity of insect pests and natural enemies in two separate statements: soil and plant canopy. Traps "pitfall" were used for the collection of soil arthropods (particularly predators), while yellow sticky traps were used to capture insects present in the shoots. The rainfall was recorded during the research in all areas studied. The orders with the highest species diversity in biodiverse, and monoculture systems, regardless of the type of trap, were Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, Araneae and Coleoptera, which are possibly associated with maintaining the balance of herbivore populations in these environments. The similarity of species collected in pitfall traps and adhesive between the areas studied was influenced by the history of the occupation of the areas and months of collection, and the precipitation effect on the diversity of arthropods collected in the different systems of cultivation of palm oil. Different kinds of ants (eg., Solenopsis and Pheidole) representatives gathered in this research are predators, a fact which reinforces the hypothesis of the same potential to act as natural enemies of pests in these systems. The different systems of cultivation of oil palm evaluated reported great diversity of spiders, possibly by offering diversified food resource availability (eg., Insects) for these generalist natural enemies. This research is the first to record the diversity of soil spiders in oil palm cultivation in the Eastern Brazilian Amazon, a fact that provides insights for future studies on the ecological group. Although this study presents results of the first two years of implementation of the cultivation of oil palm in the field, they reveal the importance of studies that aim to assess the influence of biodiverse environments in the maintenance and multiplication of natural enemies to act in the biological control of insect pest of many crops, particularly palms.
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