Invertebrados de interesse socioeconômico da Praia da Gamboa, Cairu - BA: de padrões macroecológicos à sustentabilidade

Abstract

The extractive activity, historically developed by traditional communities, is a result from the particular way of traditional communities’ life, defined by the environment, which they live in. Thus, the activity reach the developing into an economic scenario and therefore directly affects the natural stocks of populations of the target species, resulting in their populations decline. Across the tools that can contribute to the management of extractive activity is the mapping of important regions for conservation within the context of conservation biogeography. This approach, enhancing by the current conservation status of species, provides information about the distribution of species, quality of their environment and supports the implementation of systematic conservation planning through the identification of priority areas for conservation. This study aimed to: i) map out areas of environmental suitability for the invertebrate species that are targets of economic interest at Gamboa Beach, Cairu/BA; ii) evaluate the distance in which Cairu/BA is from the optimum of species niches that are target of economic interest; and iii) identify the irreplaceability spatial pattern for conservation of these species in a biogeographical context, to assess the probability of Cairu/BA level of irreplaceability can be better than expected by chance, comparing with the regional spatial pattern. The study area showed high values of environmental suitability for the most part of species and only Anomalocardia flexuosa and Phacoides pectinatus had populations considered locally vulnerable. In addition, Cairu/BA exhibited high levels of irreplaceability with values better than expected by chance. The results reinforce the conservation importance of the study area and indicate that for the species used in economical way is necessary to maintain the mining activity in a sustainable way.