Departamento de Ciencias de la Vida y de la Agricultura, Universidad de las Fuerzas Armadas (ESPE), Av. General Rumiñahui s/n, Sangolquí, Ecuador.
Department of Biosystems Engineering, Universidade de São Paulo-USP, Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil.
PeerJ. 2023 Mar 14;11:e14975. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14975. eCollection 2023.
Efforts to alleviate the negative effects of oil spills in the Ecuadorian Amazon include remediation activities such as cleaning, reshaping, and revegetation of polluted areas. However, studies of the diversity of biological communities in these hydrocarbon-degraded ecosystems have never been carried out. Here, we evaluated the diversity of dung beetles on remediated soil ecosystems (Agricultural Soils and Sensitive Ecosystems) and on non-contaminated soils (Natural Forests and Palm Plantations).
The study was conducted in Sucumbíos and Orellana provinces, in the Ecuadorian Amazon at four sampling sites per ecosystem type (a total of 16 sites). At each sampling site, six pitfall traps remained active for 120 consecutive h per month for 1 year.
We collected 37 species and 7,506 individuals of dung beetles. We observed significant differences in mean species abundance, richness, and diversity between non-contaminated soil ecosystems and remediated soil ecosystems, with Natural Forests presenting the highest values, and Agricultural Soils the lowest values. Regarding sampling month, we also found significant differences among ecosystems, which were also higher in Natural Forests.
The results suggest that hydrocarbon-degraded ecosystems tend to conserve lower beetle diversity one year after remediation highlighting the importance of Natural Forests for the conservation of tropical biodiversity. Therefore, dung beetle diversity could be used for future landscape management of these hydrocarbon-degraded ecosystems.
为了减轻厄瓜多尔亚马逊地区石油泄漏的负面影响，人们开展了许多补救活动，如清理、重塑和受污染地区的植被恢复。然而，对于这些碳氢化合物降解生态系统中的生物群落多样性的研究从未进行过。在这里，我们评估了修复后的土壤生态系统（农业土壤和敏感生态系统）和未受污染土壤（天然森林和油棕种植园）上粪便甲虫的多样性。
该研究在厄瓜多尔亚马逊的苏昆比奥斯省和奥雷利亚纳省的四个生态系统类型的采样点进行（每个生态系统类型共 16 个采样点）。在每个采样点，每个月有 6 个陷阱持续活跃 120 小时，持续一年。
我们共收集到 37 种和 7506 只粪甲虫。我们观察到未受污染土壤生态系统和修复土壤生态系统之间的平均物种丰度、丰富度和多样性存在显著差异，其中天然森林的数值最高，而农业土壤的数值最低。关于采样月份，我们也发现了生态系统之间存在显著差异，其中天然森林的差异最大。
研究结果表明，碳氢化合物降解生态系统在修复后一年往往保持较低的甲虫多样性，这突出了天然森林对保护热带生物多样性的重要性。因此，粪甲虫的多样性可以用于未来这些碳氢化合物降解生态系统的景观管理。
