Insect

Albuquerque, Larissa Simões Corrêa de, Grossi, Paschoal Coelho & Iannuzzi, Luciana, 2016, Flight patterns and sex ratio of beetles of the subfamily Dynastinae (Coleoptera, Melolonthidae), Revista Brasileira de Entomologia 60 (3), pp. 248-254 : 249-250

Insect sampling

Beetles of the subfamily Dynastinae were collected monthly from December 2010 to November 2011, except April 2011, due to intense rainfall that prevented access to the collection site. Sampling lasted 12 h and was performed every 30 days. The sample site was established at a distance of 30 m from the edge of the remnant of the Atlantic rainforest.

A light trap was installed to attract beetles from 5:00 pm to 5:00 am the following day. Black light (250 W) and mixed mercury vapor bulbs (250 W) were deployed on opposite sides of a white sheet measuring 2.3 m × 2.0 m, stretched at the collection point ( Fig. 2A–C ). The beetles were collected manually as they landed on the illuminated sheet.

For each hour of collection, a killing jar (polypropylene jar with ethyl acetate) was used to record of flight period. The samples were taken to laboratory of Taxonomia e Ecologia de Insetos of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco for taxonomic identification. Abiotic data, abundance, richness and flight period were pooled for the subsequent analyses. Voucher specimens were deposited in Coleção Entomológica da UFPE (CE-UFPE).

Data analysis

The abundance and richness of the species of Dynastinae sampled in the dry and rainy seasons were compared using one-way ANOVA test with the aid of the STATISTICA 7.0 program (StatSoft, 2004), with significance level set at 5% (p <0.05). Tukey’s test was employed for the post hoc evaluations. Abundance and richness values were transformed to LOG + 1. For the determination of sex ratios, differences between males and females were tested using the chi-square (Χ 2) test for each species with the aid of the BioEstat 5.0 program ( Instituto Mamirauá, 2007). Spearman correlation analysis was performed, with R 3.1.1 program, between rainfall and the most abundant species found (R Development Core Team, 2014). Circular statistics were performed for the flight period with the aid of the ORIANA program, considering the most abundant species (n ≥ 10) ( Kovach Computing Services, 2004).

Figures

Fig. 2. Light trap model used for beetle sampling: (A) Black light bulb. (B) Mixed mercury bulb. (C) Light support.