Monitoraggio di un gruppo di insetti predatori, i coleotteri carabidi, ai fini della conservazione e dello sviluppo sostenibile dell'agricoltura nel parco nazionale della Sila
Mostra/ Apri
Creato da
Cavaliere, Francesco
Cerra, Maria Carmela
Brandmayr, Pietro
Giglio, Anita
Metadata
Mostra tutti i dati dell'itemDescrizione
Formato
/
Università della Calabria. Dipartimento di Biologia, Ecologia e Scienze della Terra
Dottorato di Ricerca in Scienze della Vita. Ciclo XXXII; Agricultural management practices are known to cause lethal and sub-lethal effects
on animals inhabiting croplands. The persistence and residual accumulation of
pesticides in the soil are detrimental to the environment and pose a risk for human
health and for species providing biocontrol ecosystem services. Carabid beetles are
useful bioindicators to evaluate the ecological effects of agrochemicals due to their
ecological role as predators in farmland. In order to assess the sub-lethal effects at the
community, species and organism levels, on non-target species caused by regular
pesticide applications, an environmental monitoring was performed over a period of
two years, in two sites around the agricultural area to Sila National Park. One site is a
conventional farm (39°16'58.05"N, 16°38'43.26"E, 1240 m a.s.l., Torre Garga Farm,
Calabria, Italy), it was treated with herbicides, pesticides and fungicides used for pest
control. The second site, chosen as control, is an organic farm (39°17'10.28"N,
16°42'28.33"E, 1150 m a.s.l., Macchia di Tuono Farm, Calabria, Italy). To check the
direct sublethal effect of field exposure on species abundance and density at the
community level, carabid beetles were collected in vivo by pitfall traps and identified
using dichotomous keys. To asses the direct sub-lethal effect of field exposure at the
organism level, the body size, the constitutive immune responses and genotoxicity we
quantified in adults of Harpalus rufipes, a generalist predator taxonomically and
ecologically well known, widely distributed and easy to collect in crops. The findings
of this study indicated that chemical treatments admitted in the conventionally
managed fields have negative effects on the abundance and density of species
inhabiting croplands, the low level of PO and lysozyme-like enzyme activities and
the DNA damage recorded in haemocytes indicated that field treatments might
influence this non-target soil-dwelling species. However, field treatments did not
cause morphometric changes in the body size of adults. The reduction of humoral
responses and the genotoxic effect recorded on haemocytes may result in an
increased susceptibility of this species to pathogens. From an ecoimmunological
point of view, a modification of other basic life history traits such as reproduction, dispersal activity and predation may occur with effects on the adult fitness, resulting
in changes of the population structure and in a reduction of the biocontrol activity for
pest species in agroecosystem.Soggetto
Coleotteri carabidi; Pesticidi; Monitoraggio ambientale; Genotossicità
Relazione
BIOS/05;