Resumo

GALLEGO-ROPERO, María Cristina; MONTOYA-LERMA, James  e  ARMBRECHT, Inge. IS BENEFICIAL FOR ANT DIVERSITY AND COFFEE WEIGHT?: AN EXPERIENCE IN PESCADOR, CAUCA, COLOMBIA. Bol. Cient. Mus. Hist. Nat. Univ. Caldas [online]. 2009, vol.13, n.2, pp.106-116. ISSN 0123-3068.

Certain agroecological practices, such as implementing crops in agroforest systems favor biodiversity and, consequently the presence of certain biological control agents. Among these agents, predatory ants might play an important role for crop production. This study was intended to determine whether the presence of ants might affect coffee production weight two shade-management systems. Partially controlled trials were carried out, the exclusion of ants in 4 coffee plots: two with tree shade and two without shade (sun). In each plot, 45 coffee bushes were randomly selected and two treatments were established in two branches, with and without exclusion of non-flying anthropods. Ants and coffee grains were collected every two weeks, as they ripen. The coffee grains were manually processed (peeled, dried and thrashed) in order to obtain the final product, which was weighed. Although no statistical differences were found between treatments, coffee weight tended to be higher in branches with the presence of ants. A total of 18 ant genera and 49 morphospecies were found, from which 20 were shared between shaded and sun coffee plantations. The shaded system was more diverse (42 morphospecies) than the unshaded coffee system (27). Three species of Procryptocerus were found only in shaded coffee plantations. Although the results are not conclusive, they suggest that shaded coffee systems are important for biodiversity management in coffee growing regions of the Andean Tropical Mountains of Colombia.

Palavras-chave : Formicidae; agroecological practices; coffee production.

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