title: Little effects of reduced-impact logging on insect communities in eastern Amazonia.
abstract: Selective logging has become a major source of threats to tropical forest, bringing challenges for both ecologists and managers to develop low-impact forestry. Reduced-impact logging (RIL) is a prominent activity accounting for such forestry practices to prevent strong forest disturbances. Our aims were to evaluate the effects of RIL on insect communities of forested streams from Eastern Amazon and to test the hypothesis of negative effects of RIL on species richness, abundance, and functional feeding groups of aquatic insect assemblages. Neither of the evaluated metrics of the studied assemblages were negatively affected by RIL. Environmental metrics, such as substrate heterogeneity, woody canopy cover, and hill slope height, varied more among RIL streams than in reference streams, indicating a gradient according to logging impacts, and are suitable candidates to monitor RIL impacts in Amazonian streams. In addition, the PHI index also varied among REF and RIL, according to age class and year of logging, which could reflect trends to recover the forest structure after logging in a time frame of only 10 years. We conclude that RIL impacts have not had detrimental impacts on insect communities, but have changed little of the environmental conditions, especially of the riparian vegetation around streams.
authors.affiliation: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (Bloco ICB V), Campus II/UFG, Goiânia, Goiás, CEP: 74001-970, Brazil. dnogueira.bio@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Denis Silva
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Nogueira
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação, Universidade Federal do Pará, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Rua Augusto Correia, N° 1 Bairro Guamá, Belém, Pará, CEP 66.075-110, Brazil.
authors.forename: Lenize Batista
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Calvão
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação, Universidade Federal do Pará, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Rua Augusto Correia, N° 1 Bairro Guamá, Belém, Pará, CEP 66.075-110, Brazil.
authors.forename: Luciano Fogaça
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: de Assis Montag
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação, Universidade Federal do Pará, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Rua Augusto Correia, N° 1 Bairro Guamá, Belém, Pará, CEP 66.075-110, Brazil.
authors.forename: Leandro
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Juen
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ecologia, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas (Bloco ICB V), Campus II/UFG, Goiânia, Goiás, CEP: 74001-970, Brazil.
authors.forename: Paulo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Marco
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D001938:Brazil; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D016468:Forestry; D065928:Forests; D007313:Insecta / Q000145:classification / Q000254:growth & development*
keywords: Amazon; Forestry impacts; Habitat integrity; Headwaters biodiversity; Stream communities