ORIGINAL PAPER Habitat conversion and galling insect richness in tropical rainforests under mining effect Walter Santos de Arau ´jo • Kleber do Espı ´rito-Santo Filho • Leonardo Lima Bergamini • Ramon Gomes • Se ´rgio Augusto Abraha ˜o Morato Received: 8 April 2014 / Accepted: 5 November 2014 / Published online: 16 November 2014 Ó Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014 Abstract Human-induced habitat change is the main cause of species loss and can have severe effects on plant communities and the associated herbivore fauna. In this study, we investigated the effects of habitat conversion due to mining on communities of galling insects in areas of tropical rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon. We sampled galling insects in the Floresta Nacional de Saraca ´ Taquera, Para ´, Brazil, where forest plateaus are used by the Miner- ac ¸a ˜o Rio do Norte Group to extract bauxite. Our results show that human-induced habitat change via mining activities increased the local species richness of galling insects. We also found that after impact there was greater species richness of galling insects closer to the forest edge than in the forest interior. Changes in plant physiology and in the diversity of natural enemies in human-modified habitats, along with the endophagous life-form, might account for the high incidence of galling in human-dis- turbed habitats. This result highlights the importance of understanding how different insect groups respond to human activities, since such idiosyncrasies might have profound effects on the species’ patterns of ecological interactions and in the outcomes of those interactions. Keywords Galls Á Habitat change Á Phytophagous insects Á Tropical forest Introduction The conversion of pristine natural habitats into human- modified areas is a growing worldwide phenomenon (Foley et al. 2005) and is the main cause of species loss (Krauss et al. 2010). Human-induced habitat change can have multiple effects on the local fauna and flora since it pro- motes the local extinction of native species and facilitates the colonization by invasive species (Tilman and Lehman 2001; Seabloom et al. 2006). As a consequence, most of the direct effects of habitat conversion act on the plant com- munity (Didham et al. 2007) and, therefore, also on animal communities but especially those that are highly dependent on plant species such as phytophagous insects (Tscharntke et al. 2002). One of the herbivorous insect guilds most dependent on host plants is the galling insects. Studies have shown that the species richness of host plants (Oyama et al. 2003), the density of vegetation (Cuevas-Reyes et al. 2004), and the plant species composition (Veldtman and Mcgeoch 2003), can be factors of a plant community important in deter- mining galling insect diversity. However, recent evidence suggests that habitat modification can alter galling insect species richness independently of changes in plant diver- sity by altering the nutritional quality of the host plants (Arau ´jo and Espı ´rito-Santo Filho 2012). Although recent research has increased the understand- ing of the effects of human disturbances on communities of W. S. de Arau ´jo (&) Á L. L. Bergamini Departamento de Ecologia, ICB, Universidade Federal de Goia ´s (UFG), Goia ˆnia, GO 74001-970, Brazil e-mail: walterbioaraujo@yahoo.com.br W. S. de Arau ´jo Á K. do Espı ´rito-Santo Filho Nu ´cleo de Ecologia de Insetos–HRC (Hexapoda Research Co-operation), Goia ˆnia, GO CEP 74692-006, Brazil R. Gomes Á S. A. A. Morato STCP Engenharia de Projetos Ltda, Curitiba, PR 80530-260, Brazil S. A. A. Morato Curso de Po ´s-Graduac ¸a ˜o/MBA em Gesta ˜o Ambiental–DCA, UFPA, Curitiba, PR, Brazil 123 J Insect Conserv (2014) 18:1147–1152 DOI 10.1007/s10841-014-9725-6