Species Diversity and Abundance of Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) in Urban Forest Fragments, Brazil

Abstract

Urban Forest remnants are important for the persistence of flora and fauna species, being able to exploited by culicids that have different degrees of synanthropy and preference for distinct habitats. The objective was to evaluate the difference in diversity, abundance, richness and distribution of the Culicidae fauna in a remnant of urban forest. Collections of adult Culicidae using BG-Sentinel ® traps and dry ice as a source of CO 2 were carried out in four distinct sites an urban forest, in the municipality of Sabara, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Fifteen traps were installed weekly a month, between April/2011 and May/2012. Indexes (Shanon-Wiener diversity; Berger-Parker dominance; Bray-Curtis similarity and richness estimators) were used to compare the sampled locations. A total of 3,221 Culicidae belonging to 26 species of 10 genera were identified. The dominant species ( Culex quinquefasciatus, Limatus durhamii, Aedes albopictus, Haemagogus leucocelaenus, Chagasia fajardi and A. aegypti ) accumulated 95% of the total abundance of the collections. Eight (31 %) of the 26 species were found in the four collection sites; six (23 %) were present in three locations, four (15 %) in two areas and eight (31%) were found only in one of the collection sites. Differences were observed between abundance (GLM, ANOVA, p<0.05) and richness (ANOSIM, R=0.81, p<0.0001) between the sampled areas. Habitat fragmentation impacts on abundance, distribution and richness of Culicidae species in urban forest remnants. Ongoing monitoring can help to better understand and assess seasonal factors in the dynamics of species distribution among sampled areas.