"Effect of woody vegetation density on ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) community in veredas".
cerrado, spatial scales, myrmecofauna, diversity partition.
Biodiversity is an essential element for the health and balance of ecosystems, with the structure of the habitat determining its variation. In this context, the loss of diversity is associated with the increase in the density of woody vegetation in savannas across the globe, including in veredas ecosystems in the Cerrado biome. The veredas stand out for being important fauna and flora refuges in addition to water sources that supply essential rivers of the Brazilian Cerrado. Due to climate change, driven by anthropic activities, densities due to woody encroachment have promoted changes in plant and animal communities in veredas. In view of this, we intend to investigate the effect of woody density on the ant community in ecosystems of veredas in the Grande Sertão Veredas National Park, located on the border of the states of Minas Gerais and Bahia. To answer this question, this thesis will be divided into two chapters where six veredas and two habitats with different vegetational composition in each vereda will be considered, woody encroachment and natural vegetation composed of grasses. In the first chapter, it is proposed to test how the response variable generates the taxonomic and functional group diversity of the ant community in response to ecological predictors (vegetation density, grass biomass, soil compaction and canopy cover index) and variables environmental (precipitation, humidity and temperature). In the second chapter we intend to evaluate how woody encroachment affects alpha, beta and gamma diversity at multiple spatial scales in grassy and woody density habitats and the effect of density on the substitution and nesting components of species in the generation of beta diversity.