Influência do gradiente altitudinal na distribuição e diversidade de insetos em florestas de Miombo-Unango-Sanga.

Altitude is a factor influencing insect distribution and diversity, providing two types of distribution patterns i) decline in richness and abundance with increasing altitude; ii) greater richness and abundance at low and intermediate altitudes. In Mozambique there are few studies on the effects of altitude on the distribution and diversity of insects in miombo forests. The objective of the research was to evaluate the influence of altitude on the distribution and diversity of insects in the miombo forest of Monte Unango. For data collection, transects were installed at 4 altitudes: 1058, 1108, 1158 and 1208 m, respectively. The species were captured through a combination of three methods: pitfall traps, light traps, and entomological nets. The frequency of occurrence of the species was used to determine the distribution of insects. The Margalef (D), Shannon- Wiener (H'), Simpson (S') and Pielou (J') indices were used to determine insect diversity and the Jaccard coefficient (J) was used to determine the similarity between the evaluated altitudes. ANOVA was used to assess the influence of altitude on insect distribution. The species Gyna caffrarum, Messor capensis, Hydrophilus, Gonocephalum simplex, Plonisa plagiata, Eurychora, Trigonopus, Linepithema humile, Polyrhachis gagates, Mutilla Astarte, Notiophygus and Streblognathus aethiopicus were more frequent, representing 79.38% of the total abundance. The altitude of 1108 m showed the highest diversity (D = 8.811; H' = 2.968; S' = 0.9056 and J' = 2.969) and the lowest diversity was observed at the altitude of 1208 m (D = 5.448; H' = 2.823; S' = 0.9075 and J' =0.8301). Among the altitudes, there was greater similarity between the altitudes of 1058 and 1208 m (J = 0.4310) and low between the altitudes of 1158 and 1208 m (J = 0.3175). ANOVA showed that altitude had no influence on the distribution but on the diversity of insects, as there was a non-linear increase in richness with increasing altitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]