Ant Diversity Studies 2015

The number of contemporary publications that focus on ant communities and ant biodiversity shows that these topics continue to be strong areas of interest. This page is a place to begin to gather a list of publications, however incomplete, published about these topics.

2015

 * Cantarelli, E. B., M. D. Fleck, F. Granzotto, J. D. N. Corassa, and M. d'Avila. 2015. Diversity of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of litter in different systems of soil use. Ciencia Florestal. 25:607-616.

ABSTRACT: Litter ant species found in four sites located in northwestern Rio Grande do Sul state were listed in this study to verify the impact of human activities conducted in rural areas. The method used for the collection of litter ants was the Winkler extractor. There were collected 6,300 specimens belonging to eight subfamilies, 18 tribes, 31 genera and 108 species. Native forest presented the highest richness observed with 90 species collected, followed by 65 eucalyptus species, and agriculture and pasture with 20 exotic species each. Margalef's diversity index was 11.21 for area with native forest, 8.37 for eucalypt, 3.48 for agriculture, and 2.71 in exotic pasture area. The Shannon's diversity indices obtained were 2.89, 3.15, 2.43 and 1.98 and equitability indices of 0.64, 0.75, 0.84 and 0.66 for areas with native forest, eucalyptus, agriculture and exotic pasture, respectively. The highest diversity index for the eucalypt area may be due to the age of the forest (28 years) and the fact that it has not been managed as well as due to the presence of understory of native species, forming a continuous canopy and thick litter layer. On the other hand, since the native forest has suffered human interventions, it has a lower Shannon's diversity index compared to the eucalypt area.


 * Meurer, E., L. D. Battirola, J. H. C. Delabie, and M. I. Marques. 2015. Influence of the Vegetation Mosaic on Ant (Formicidae: Hymenoptera) Distributions in the Northern Brazilian Pantanal. Sociobiology. 62:382-388. doi:10.13102/sociobiology.v62i3.359

ABSTRACT: We examined how vegetation mosaic influences distribution of the edaphic ant (Formicidae) community in the northern part of the Pantanal in Cáceres, State of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Plant formations (hereafter habitats) that characterize this area include several savanna types, such as: Cerrado sensu stricto, Cerradão, Semi-deciduous forest, Termite savanna, Open fields and Cerrado field/carandazal. Pitfall traps were placed in ten 250 m transects each one separated by 1 km, within an area of 2 x 5 km (following RAPELD methodology). Five traps at intervals of 50 m were placed along each transect, in September and December 2008. Forty-four ant species were collected. leaf litter predicted ant presence and influenced species occurrence in the different habitats. Pantanal habitats are very different structurally from one to another, which has have resulted in areas with very specific ant assemblages. The understanding of the ant community structure in these areas is fundamental to floodplain management.


 * Pech, P., J. Dolansky, R. Hrdlicka, and J. Leps. 2015. Differential response of communities of plants, snails, ants and spiders to long-term mowing in a small-scale experiment. Community Ecology. 16:115-124. doi:10.1556/168.2015.16.1.13

ABSTRACT: We examined the response of communities of four groups of organisms (plants, snails, ants and spiders) in a small scale mosaic of 8-years mown and unmown plots in a wet meadow in Central Europe. The experimental setup consisted of 7 unmown and 8 regularly mown 4 m2 plots in checkerboard arrangement. Eight years after the start of the experiment, the plant community structure diverged in response to mowing/nonmowing, both in species composition and structure. Both bryophyte and vascular plant species numbers were significantly higher in the mown plots. In unmown plots, bryophytes nearly disappeared and plots were dominated by the tall tussock grass Molinia caerulea. Both diversity and abundance of snails were higher in unmown plots than in mown ones. Ant nests were more abundant in mown plots and species composition differed between mown and unmown plots. We captured significantly more individuals of spiders in mown plots but we did not find any difference in species composition. We conclude that the 8-years duration of different management of 4 m2 plots was sufficient to establish different communities in low movable organisms, whereas these plots are probably too small to host different assemblages of organisms with good active dispersal abilities.


 * Rocha-Ortega, M. and G. Castano-Meneses. 2015. Effects of urbanization on the diversity of ant assemblages in tropical dry forests, Mexico. Urban Ecosystems. 18:1373-1388. doi:10.1007/s11252-015-0446-8

Urbanization has a direct effect on the landscape and its biodiversity, however urban centers has been ignored in most ecological studies. We study the diversity of ant communities in four remnants of tropical dry forest with different degrees of disturbance which are on the edge of the urban area in Querétaro city, Mexico. Samples were collected two times per month, from December 2004 to December 2005, in four strata: leaf litter, ground, scrub and arboreal. . A total of 25 species and 23 morphospecies were captured, belonging to 28 genera of 6 subfamilies: Dolichoderinae (3 species), Ecitoninae (5), Formicinae (12), Myrmicinae (24), Ponerinae (2) and Pseudomyrmicinae (2). Across the urban-disturbance gradient here studied the local diversity pattern could be explaining by the disturbance heterogeneity model. The most negative effect of urbanization was found for arboreal ants, while leaf litter communities were less susceptible to anthropogenic changes. In general, we found low rates of turnover, even in sites with high values of alpha diversity, evidencing the impoverishment of the ant community surrounding Querétaro city and the susceptibility of the community to extinction. The remnants were functionally very dissimilar and the effects of urbanization depend largely of the diet and life history of individual ant species. Moreover, it was found that the soil proprieties and vegetation structure influenced patterns of ant diversity along the urban-disturbance gradient. Despite the anthropogenic disturbance of the tropical dry forests surrounding the city of Querétaro, these forest remnants serve as a refuge for rare species and prove ecosystem functions. Ant biodiversity is also indicative of the state of ecosystem functions inside these remnants and likely of the biodiversity of other groups. Therefore, the conservation of these sites must be promoted to protect ant biodiversity and other taxonomic groups.