Impact of Pesticides Application on Epigeic Fauna in Tomato Cultivation

Abstract

Our comprehension on the effects of the pesticide on soil epigeic invertebrates, especially non-target organisms in tomato cultivation is still incipient. We aimed to study the epigeic fauna from spots with and without insecticide application in Brejão municipally, Pernambuco, Brazil. The experiment was composed of three treatments: Two tomato crop production (two tomato varieties SUPERA and TY10) under high insecticide application; and a native fragment in Atlantic Forest without insecticide application. Epigeic fauna was evaluated using pitfall traps, sampled in eleven periods. They were identified at the level of order and, when possible, family. We used univariate statistic to find the difference between treatments, and multivariate statistic to verify the dissimilarity between treatments. We sampled 2571 invertebrates, distributed within 7 orders. Even among those, Coleoptera was more frequently sampled. The orders that mostly discriminated the areas were Coleoptera and Diptera. Within the order Coleoptera, the families Lycidae, Nitidulidae, Tenebrionidae and Cantharidae had greater contribution to the areas separation. The pesticides application had a strong effect on non-target organisms, reducing the Coleoptera family’s richness when compared with the no-pesticides area (Treatment 3).