Coleopteran diversity was studied in three physionomies of Cerrado lato sensu in Brasília-DF: campo de murundum (1), campo sujo (2) and cerrado sensu stricto (3). In each area, insects were collected by sweep sampling on 2,000 m in each vegetation type. A total of 1,044 specimens of 155 species, distributed in 15 families were collected. The abundance varied from 1 to 441 specimens/species, with most species represented by a single specimen. We found a low faunistic similarity between areas, with high percentage of species restricted to only one area. The diversity index (Shannon - H'=1,87; H'=4,16; H'=3,17) obtained for the areas 1, 2 and 3, respectively, suggest that the species are not homogeneously distributed. The values obtained for body size (1,0 to 11,0 mm) showed most species and specimens were smaller than 5 mm.
Insecta; survey; species richness; abundance