Diversity of the families of Coleoptera captured with pitfall traps in five different environments in Santa Maria, RS, Brazil.

The conservationist community is giving special attention to epigean insects due to their importance in the preservation of terrestrial habitats. This work analysed the diversity, richness, abundance and similarity at the soil surface of Coleoptera composition among five environments: native forest, native grassland, Pinus elliottii plantation, Eucalyptus saligna plantation and degraded area by soil use in southern Brazil, from October 2004 to October 2005. A total of 1,812 individuals were collected, attributed to 45 morph-species and 14 families. The higher richness and abundance were observed in native forest (31 species and 782 individuals) and the lower richness and abundance in degraded area (14 species, 86 individuals). Scarabaeidae was the richest family captured, with nine morph-species, and the most frequent family was Nitidulidae (1,113 individuals). According to the Shannon-Wiener index, the degraded area had smaller diversity in relation to the native forest, E. saligna and Pinus elliottii plantations. No difference in diversity between evaluated areas was found for the Simpson diversity index. The most dominant site was the degraded. The correlation between the total number of morph-species captured was not different to the degraded area and the P. elliottii monoculture (r = 0.47) and the correlation between the total individuals number was not significant between native forest and native grassland (r = 0.46) and between degraded areas and the other sites. According to the Jaccard Similarity Index, the greatest similarity for the organism composition occurred between P. elliottii plantation and E. saligna plantation, presenting 74% of overlap.