Macrofauna edáfica em sistema de plantio direto de hortaliças em diferentes estações do ano no cerrado.

Abstract

Management practices directly affect the physical, chemical, and biological attributes of the soil, with this, the quantification of invertebrate fauna has become an important tool to assess soil quality, as the changes caused by the adopted management system are sensitive. This study aimed to evaluate the influence of vegetation cover residues and seasonality on the diversity of edaphic macrofauna, in areas cultivated in a no-tillage system of irrigated vegetables, in two seasons of the year, in Uberaba, MG. The experimental design used was randomized blocks, where two areas with two vegetation covers were evaluated: 1 – Pearl millet; 2 – Sunn hemp and 3 – Native Forest (Fragment of forest undergoing natural regeneration for more than 20 years); at two times a year: 1 – Dry period (May/June); 2 – Rainy season (November/December), all with 5 repetitions. Soils were collected at a depth of 10 cm to identify the macrofauna, using the Tropical Soil Biological and Fertility (TSBF) methodology. The data were calculated regarding total richness, Shannon indices, and Pielou diversity, in addition to analysis of variance, non-parametric, and principal components (PCA) of the data. For the taxonomic groups, both in the litter and the soil, pearl millet and sunn hemp residues promoted better conditions for increasing the population density of organisms in the native forest, at both times of the year; The Richness values and the Shannon and Pielou indices were not influenced about the collection periods, both for litter and soil in both treatments; about treatments, both favored the diversity of invertebrate macrofauna, however about collection periods, the rainy season favored better conditions for the development of fauna. The highest population density of organisms in the litter occurred in the dry period of the year, while in the soil it occurred during the rainy period.