Description of epigean arthropods in two environments Talampaya National Park, La Rioja, Argentina.

Abstract

This Project studies the biodiversity composition of epigean artrhropods in two habitats of the Talampaya, National Park, La Rioja,Argentina. The two studied habitats are different in the composition and vegetational structure. The habitats were designed as follow: “Site A”: poor in organic matter with scare development and structure of the soil; “Site B”: is structured soil with more
floristic richness.

The diversity of the epigean arthropods was considered using pit-fall trapping that gives good information about diversity of the epigean arthropods. Twenty pit-fall traps were put on each site according with the follow design: 4 traps arranged into 5 rows, separated each trap by 5 meters considering this distance between the rows and the traps. The traps were filled with a water solution with drops of detergent. The traps were active during 2 days on each season during one year, and revised three times by day: between 8:00-10:00AM; 2:00-4:00PM and 6:00-8:00PM. The statistical analysis was carried out using the software InfoStat 2004.

Two thousand three hundred and eighty five epigean arthropods of 15 orders were collected at the Talampaya National Park. Both studied sites were different in the epigean arthropod composition community in species diversity, maybe this will be relationship with the variation of the vegetation structure and the soil composition of each sites. According with them, both habitats are important to conserve in theTalampaya National Park, La Rioja (Argentina), because the have a complementary fauna.