In Brazil is the most protected areas (PA) in the world, and mostly located in the
Amazon. Currently, the Amazon biome has 73% of APs Brazil or 111 million hectares,
37% full and 63% use of sustainable use. Despite the large number, biodiversity does
not have its assured conservation, since the population increases every year, as well as
demands for goods and services that result in modifications of the ecosystems that are
often outside or even inside the PAs. So our main objective is to study the Odonata
adult structuring patterns in a protected area and its surroundings. For this, the thesis is
divided into three chapters held in streams in the eastern Amazon. In the first chapter,
our hypothesis was to test whether we would find a greater diversity of species of
dragonflies in AP due to greater complexity of habitats. In the second chapter, we tested
the hypothesis that there would be high beta diversity due to the high replacement
species that is expected to find. In the third chapter, we tested the hypothesis that
Odonata would be a weak to moderate substitute for other groups, because of the
inherent characteristics of the group, as the great mobility. The study was carried out in
30 streams, 17 located within a protected and 13 in the surrounding area. The results of
the first chapter were the largest diversity of Odonata found in the environment,
compared with the AP. There were also differences in the species composition of the
two environments, and differences between environmental variables between areas.
Thus, the combination of the protected area and the surroundings, with a low level of
disturbance retains a broad range of specialist species Odonata than just a single area. In
the second chapter, there was a high beta diversity in Odonata both the AP and in the
environment, possibly explained by the niche breadth combined with the spatial
structure of the environment. In addition, we found that the specific requirement of the
species happens associated with a natural variation in the environment, since there was
large beta diversity and high turnover in both environments. Even with some
environmental change, it was not big or strong enough to exclude all species and
therefore they can survive in this environment. In the third chapter, we tested the
correlation between adult Odonata with other aquatic groups such as fish,
Ephemeroptera and Trichoptera combined (ET) and chironomids in streams of the
Eastern Amazon. There was a correlation between species richness and consistency of
Odonata of adults with fish and ET, though the strength of these correlations were
moderate to low. So we discussed that adult Odonata are a moderate to weak group
substitute for other aquatic organisms in streams of the eastern Amazon. Thus, we
suggest caution in the use of a single taxon as a substitute for others and for
conservation planning, the best would be to use a wide range of taxa, reflecting
holistically aquatic biodiversity. Finally, both areas of protection becomes important to
maintain the pool of own species of each environment, with our major challenge in the
future is to find a way to identify the disturbance levels that would be acceptable to
avoid over-exploitation of resources in these areas.
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