The environmental transformations constitute the principal cause of changes in biodiversity. This make the comparative studies between natural and altered environments very important. This research compare the beetle fauna at the following areas: isolated forest fragment and pasture at the secondary stage of succession. Beetles were collected using four pitfall traps baited with cattle meat in each area, fortnightly from November 1998 to April 1999. A total of 17,721 individuals from 30 families of Coleóptera in forest and 6,597 individuals belanging to 32 families in pasture was collected. The Sorensen index was used to calculate similarity, and Shannon index to calculate diversity. The qualitative similarity found was 0.70 and the quantitative similarity was 0.48. The mean Shannon diversity index found was 1.90 for forest and 2.01 for pasture; these values were not significantly different by T test. It was concluded that the beetle decomposer fauna collected was representative in both environments, which also contributes in the decomposition process of organic matter, in soil fertilization and also in control ling egg and larvae populations of parasitic flies.
Coleoptera; necrophagous; pitfall traps; forest fragment; pasture; decomposition