Dinâmica da serrapilheira e atividades edáficas em áreas degradadas no seridó paraibano.

Abstract

In the Brazilian semi-arid, where the Caatinga Biome predominates, the process of environmental degradation has intensified due to the anthropic actions, being severely affected and altered by firewood cutting, agriculture, burned, hunting and continuous action of cattle and goats, leaving only a small preserved and protected portion. In Picuí municipality, in Seridó Oriental Paraibano, during the last four decades, the subexistences farms, located in the rural area, were planted with monocultures caused the completely land devastated by degradation of its soils, becoming quite unproductive. In this sense, the work objective was to identify environmental changes in the litter decomposition and in the edaphic fauna in degraded areas of the Caatinga biome that are undergoing different environmental succession processes in Paraíba. For this purpose, the historical characterization of the environmental degradation using satellite images and vegetation indexes was realized, then, an experiment was made at the Agroecological Farm Gavião and Izidro, in three areas, a Degraded, Restored and Preserved Areas, whose developed procedures associated litterbags decomposiotion, physical and chemical soil analyzes, decomposing macrofauna and soil respiration measurements (Efflux de CO2). The characterization results showed how the degradation process occurred in the last decades, and that the vegetation was recovered. For the litter decomposition it was identified that the two species are important nutrients suppliers to the soil, and the Marmaleiro decomposes faster, and Catingueira deposits more nutrients in the soil. Soil analyzes, revealed that, although they are rocky and very sandy, they have a very good fertility, which is the cycling nutrients process from the litter, from the vegetation present in the areas, contributes significantly to this. The decomposing macrofauna was identified in greater quantity in the litterbags deposited in the surface than in the soil. The CO2 fluxes measured were very low, and it is important to identify the CO2 Influx phenomenon, which was measured in conditions similar a desert region, evidencing that if there aren’t interventions in the degraded areas with similar conditions, they process trend to expand to another areas. All results indicated that the Preserved Area behaved better, exalting the need for protection and maintenance of similar areas, because the processes of nutrient cycling occur more easily in similar environments.