RESUMO
A comparative study was conducted on the arthropod community in peach orchards with and without ground cover vegetation. In the orchard with ground cover vegetation, the individuals of beneficial, neutral, and phytophagous arthropods were 1.48, 1.84 and 0.64 times of those in the orchard without ground cover vegetation, respectively, but the total number of arthropods had no significant difference with that in the orchard without ground cover vegetation. The species richness, Shannon's diversity, and Pielou's evenness index of the arthropods in the orchard with ground cover vegetation were 83.733 +/- 4.932, 4.966 +/- 0.110, and 0.795 +/- 0.014, respectively, being significantly higher than those in the orchard without ground cover vegetation, whereas the Berger-Parker's dominance index was 0.135 +/- 0.012, being significantly lower than that (0.184 +/- 0.018) in the orchard without ground cover vegetation. There were no significant differences in the stability indices S/N and Sd/Sp between the two orchards, but the Nn/Np, Nd/Np, and Sn/Sp in the orchard with ground cover vegetation were 0.883 +/- 0.123. 1714 +/- 0.683, and 0.781 +/- 0.040, respectively, being significantly higher than those in the orchard without ground cover vegetation. Pearson's correlation analysis indicated that in the orchard with ground cover vegetation, the Shannon's diversity index was significantly negatively correlated with Nd/Np, Sd/Sp, and S/N but had no significant correlations with Nn/Np and Sn/Sp, whereas in the orchard without ground cover vegetation, the diversity index was significantly positively correlated with Nn/Np and Nd/Np and had no significant correlations with Sd/Sp, Sn/Sp, and S/N.
