COMPARATIVE STUDIES ON THE EPIGEAN INVERTEBRATES COMMUNITIES IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF FOREST AND AGROSYSTEM
CAMELIA URECHE, ROXANA ELENA VOICU “Vasile Alecsandri” University of Bacau, Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Ecology and Environmental Protection, 157 Marasesti Street, 600115 Bacau, Romania, e-mail: urechec@ub.ro; roxana.voicu@ub.ro
Researches regarding epigean invertebrates communities were carried out in two stages (July 2010 and July 2011) in three types of forest from Valea Uzului, Bacău County (beech and hornbeam, oak and beech, pine plantation) and a maize crop placed nearby Perchiu hill reserve, Bacău County. The aim of the present study is the assessment of the quantitative as well as the qualitative structure of the invertebrate communities in the epigean fauna, and also to highlight the representative taxa and the trophic categories characteristic for each type of ecosystems. The biological material was sampled regularly, in the same period of each of the two years (2010, 2011) by using Barber traps. An amount of 411 invertebrate individuals belonging to 9 classes and 14 orders was sampled in all of the three types of forest, with an unequal numerical distribution: 327 individuals in the first type of forest (beech and hornbeam), 53 individuals in the second type of forest (oak and hornbeam) and 61 individuals in pine plantation. Insect class is dominant in all of the sampling sites. In all of the three types of forest we found that the most of insects belong to coleopterans (79.83%). Ten families of coleopterans were identified, with the dominance of Carabidae (63.33%), followed by Silphidae (13.89%). Other coleopterans families have recorded lower values of dominance. In the maize crop agrosystem the insect class is also dominant and it is represented by six insect orders. Obviously, the beetles families are dominants. Within coleopterans, Carabidae family is by far the dominant (83.96%). From the point of view of the food regime we found that in all of the three types of forest, as well as in the maize crop agrosystem, the predators are dominant and they are followed by the phytophagous species.
