Como a proximidade de atividades agrícolas afeta libélulas? Efeitos sobre traços biológicos de Hetaerina rosea

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2014-02-27

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Universidade Federal de Goiás

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In our study, we evaluated the proximity of agricultural activities and the percentage of area with anthropogenic activities affect the development of Hetaerina rosea. The impacts of human activities may lead to instability of the development of organisms before they affect population variables. Understanding how these effects are negative for individuals can be a powerful metric and assist in decision making regarding the management of impacts. The most commonly used measure to assess how the developmental instability is fluctuating asymmetry (AF). Although several studies provide support for using AF as an indicator of stress during development, others have questioned its validity as a bioindication tool. Our findings suggest little support to AF. However, we must consider that development is an integrated process and other biological traits may be affected during development. Weight is one of these variables. In our study, we observed that individuals from environments near to agricultural activities had lower weights. This result can be explained by the influence of stresses during the larval stage, such as, for example, the presence of pesticides in streams, increased competition from adult males by breeding territories or lesser quantity/quality of food availability in streams nearby to agricultural activities. Although the hypothesis of food stress in the larval stage or adult stage cannot be considered separately, they may provide that, in Odonata, the size would be maintained in detriment of weight, since stresses during the larval stage lead to energy investment in compensatory growth through increased metabolism. Our results can be interpreted according to this premise since no significant differences between the average size of the wings. Thus, we suggest that for a more integrated view of how anthropogenic stresses affect the development of Odonata other variables should be used in addition to AF, such as weight and size.

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PINTO, Nelson Silva. Como a proximidade de atividades agrícolas afeta libélulas? Efeitos sobre traços biológicos de Hetaerina rosea. 2014. 48 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Ecologia e Evolução) - Universidade Federal de Goiás, Goiânia, 2014.