Análisis de la actividad biológica de los suelos en un transecto altitudinal del refugio de vida silvestre Yankay, Baños, Tungurahua.

Abstract

The Protected Areas constitute 20% of the surface of Ecuador, being of vital importance for the protection of biological resources since without the PAs there would be no conservation of soil biodiversity if there is no knowledge about the composition of meso and macro fauna, it is not known. the essential role that these organisms play in the edaphic zone, which is why the objective of this research work was to analyze the biological activity of the soils in an altitudinal transect of the Yankay wildlife refuge in Baños canton, Province of Tungurahua. This analysis was carried out by selecting 6 experimental units where 10 quadrant monoliths were implemented in each experimental unit to obtain worm abundance as an indicator of soil health and the Berlese Tullgren funnel method, in which 800g of edaphic mass was collected. of each experimental unit to place it in the funnels and subject it to the gradient change and proceed to count and identify free-living mesofauna that, through a stereoscope, the corresponding types of orders and families were visualized. The abundance of worms in zones 1,2,3,4 and 6 remaining forest was healthy since an abundance of worms was achieved in these zones while in zone 5, low abundance was obtained due to land use. The order Sarcoptiformes was the most abundant with a 94.28% presence in the experimental units, zone 2 being the area with the most abundance of this order, as well as the orders Hymenoptera, Collembola and Mesostigmata which occur in healthy soils. The sectors made up of secondary forest presented a healthy average number of worms when compared to the area made up of grass where the average number of worms was low. The presence of the order Sarcoptiformes in all samples denotes that the soils are still healthy and do not show degradation. The maps made it possible to delimit the areas that are affected by land use and the areas in which there is good quality of biological activity in the soils.