Ant Diversity Studies 2017

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 lists 2017 publications that focus on these topics.

Ant Diversity Publications 2015

A - L (by first author)

 * Albuquerque, E. Z., E. Diehl, and R. R. Silva. 2017. Structure of ground-dwelling ant communities in burned and unburned areas in Brazilian subtropical grasslands. Entomological Science. 20:427-436. doi:10.1111/ens.12270

Fire is frequently used in the management of pastures in southern Brazil, but its effects on ground-dwelling ant communities in Brazilian subtropical grasslands is still poorly understood. Here, we compared ant species richness and composition between periodically burned and unburned areas in native grasslands of the Atlantic Forest biome. In total, we found 35 epigeic ant species in burned and unburned areas. There was slightly higher species richness in burned than in unburned areas, independent of the sampling period (season). There was a significant difference in richness over the sampling period (season effect). Species composition varied significantly between the areas, in which nine species (26%) occurred only in burned areas, eight (23%) occurred only in unburned areas, and 18 (51%) occurred in both. Four species showed a significant preference for burned sites (Camponotus crassus, Linepithema humile and two undetermined species of Pheidole and Solenopsis). Although this study did not separate fire effects on ground-dwelling ant communities (due to sampling design), it provides new information regarding subtropical native grasslands that can be used as a baseline for future studies.


 * Dassou, A. G., P. Tixier, S. Depigny, and D. Carval. 2017. Vegetation structure of plantain-based agrosystems determines numerical dominance in community of ground-dwelling ants. Peerj. 5. doi:10.7717/peerj.3917

In tropics, ants can represent an important part of animal biomass and are known to be involved in ecosystem services, such as pest regulation. Understanding the mechanisms underlying the structuring of local ant communities is therefore important in agroecology. In the humid tropics of Africa, plantains are cropped in association with many other annual and perennial crops. Such agrosystems differ greatly in vegetation diversity and structure and are well-suited for studying how habitat-related factors affect the ant community. We analysed abundance data for the six numerically dominant ant taxa in 500 subplots located in 20 diversified, plantain-based fields. We found that the density of crops with foliage at intermediate and high canopy strata determined the numerical dominance of species. We found no relationship between the numerical dominance of each ant taxon with the crop diversity. Our results indicate that the manipulation of the densities of crops with leaves in the intermediate and high strata may help maintain the coexistence of ant species by providing different habitat patches. Further research in such agrosystems should be performed to assess if the effect of vegetation structure on ant abundance could result in efficient pest regulation.


 * Gutiérrez et al. 2017. Ants’ higher taxa as surrogates of species richness in a chronosequence of fallows, old-grown forests and agroforestry systems in the Eastern Amazon, Brazil. Revista de Biología Tropical/International Journal of Tropical Biology and Conservation. 65(1):279-291.

Abstract: Deforestation in Amazon forests is one of the main causes for biodiversity loss worldwide. Ants are key into the ecosystem because act like engineers; hence, the loss of ants’ biodiversity may be a guide to measure the loss of essential functions into the ecosystems. The aim of this study was to evaluate soil ant’s richness and to estimate whether higher taxa levels (Subfamily and Genus) can be used as surrogates of species richness in different vegetation types (fallows, old-growth forests and agroforestry systems) in Eastern Amazon. The samples were taken in 65 areas in the Maranhão and Pará States in the period 2011-2014. The sampling scheme followed the procedure of Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility (TSBF). Initially, the vegetation types were characterized according to their age and estimated species richness. Linear and exponential functions were applied to evaluate if higher taxa can be used as surrogates and correlated with the Pearson coefficient. In total, 180 species distributed in 60 genera were identified. The results showed that ant species richness was higher in intermediate fallows (88) and old secondary forest (76), and was lower in agroforestry systems (38) and mature riparian forest (35). The genus level was the best surrogate to estimate the ant’s species richness across the different vegetation types, and explained 72-97 % (P < 0.001) of the total species variability. The results confirmed that the genus level is an excellent surrogate to estimate the ant’s species richness in the region and that both fallows and agroforestry systems may contribute in the conservation of Eastern Amazon ant community.

M - Z (by first author)

 * Marques, T., M. M. Espirito-Santo, F. S. Neves, and J. H. Schoereder. 2017. Ant Assemblage Structure in a Secondary Tropical Dry Forest: The Role of Ecological Succession and Seasonality. Sociobiology. 64:261-275. doi:10.13102/sociobiology.v64i3.1276

Abstract This study identified the main biological mechanisms governing the diversity of ants on different ecological time scales. Ants were sampled in 15 plots distributed in early, intermediate and late stages of succession (five plots per stage) at the Parque Estadual da Mata Seca, Brazil. At each sample point, unbaited pitfall traps were installed in hypogaeic, epigaeic and arboreal strata. We collected 95 ant species from 26 genera and nine subfamilies. Our results indicated that there was an increase in species richness in advanced stages of succession. We also observed that ant assemblages were different among successional stages. For the arboreal and epigaeic strata, species richness did not change with succession progression, but species composition of these two strata differed among successional stages. Unlike to arboreal and epigaeic ants, hypogaiec ant species richness was higher in the intermediate and late stages of succession and the composition of hypogaeic ants differed among successional stages. Similarity between ant species foraging in arboreal and epigaeic strata decreases with succession progression and β-diversity was higher in advanced successional stages. Additionally, species richness was higher in the dry season, whereas the composition of ant assemblages did not change between seasons. A considerable fraction of the ant assemblage was found only in advanced stages of succession, demonstrating the importance of secondary habitats in maintaining biodiversity in dry forests.


 * Schmidt, F. A., C. R. Ribas, T. G. Sobrinho, R. Ubaidillah, J. H. Schoereder, Y. Clough, and T. Tscharntke. 2017. Similar alpha and beta diversity changes in tropical ant communities, comparing savannas and rainforests in Brazil and Indonesia. Oecologia. 185:487-498. doi:10.1007/s00442-017-3960-y

Abstract Local biodiversity can be expected to be similar worldwide if environmental conditions are similar. Here, we hypothesize that tropical ant communities with different types of regional species pools but at similar habitat types in Brazil and Indonesia show similar diversity patterns at multiple spatial scales, when comparing (1) the relative contribution of alpha and beta diversity to gamma diversity; (2) the number of distinct communities (community differentiation); and (3) the drivers of β-diversity (species replacement or species loss/gain) at each spatial scale. In both countries, rainforests and savannas (biome scale) were represented by three landscapes (landscape scale), each with four transects (site scale) and each transect with 10 pitfall traps (local scale). At the local scale, α-diversity was higher and β-diversity lower than expected from null models. Hence, we observed a high coexistence of species across biomes. The replacement of species seemed the most important factor for β-diversity among sites and among landscapes across biomes. Species sorting, landscape-moderated species distribution and neutral drift are potential mechanisms for the high β-diversity among sites within landscapes. At the biome scale, different evolutionary histories produced great differences in ant community composition, so the replacement of species is, at this scale, the most important driver of beta diversity. According to these key findings, we conclude that distinct regional ant species pools from similar tropical habitat types are similarly constrained across several spatial scales, regardless of the continent considered.


 * Segat, J. C., R. L. F. Vasconcellos, D. P. Silva, D. Baretta, and E. Cardoso. 2017. Ants as indicators of soil quality in an on-going recovery of riparian forests. Forest Ecology and Management. 404:338-343. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2017.07.038

Abstract: The increasing devastation of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest stresses the need to recover areas within this biome, and studies using potential indicator organisms to assess the forest recovery process are important to determine the intensity of human interference during this process. We aimed to evaluate the richness and abundance of ant genera in forests at different stages of recovery, and to identify soil attributes that contribute to differentiate these areas. Four areas with different periods of recovery were studied: one native undisturbed site (NT), and three sites with five (R05), 10 (R10), and 20 (R20) years without human perturbance. In each site, we defined a 10 × 10 m sampling grid with 30 random points (15 Pitfall +15 Monoliths) and collected the ants at a depth of 0–20 cm. We also analyzed physical, chemical, and biological properties at each site to correlate them with the ant genera. These variables were used in canonical discriminant analysis (CDA) and canonical correlation analysis (CCA). Leaf litter quality, higher ant genera diversity and abundance correlated with both NT and R20, more than with the other areas evaluated. The ant genera abundance was appropriated for separating the different vegetation recovery stages. The CDA analysis indicated that Atta (0.418) correlated with R05, and Brachymyrmex (0.136) with NT, being genera that contributed to area differentiation, and these genera may serve as indicators to qualify the stages of the recovery gradient. The ant genera correlated with the areas R05 and R10 also are correlated closely with environments defined by little vegetation complexity and with urban areas, while those predominating in NT and R20 are common to areas with more structured floristic composition. These results highlight the strong relationship between ants and some of the physical, chemical, and biological soil properties of the different areas.


 * Silva, L. F., R. M. Souza, R. R. C. Solar, and F. D. Neves. 2017. Ant diversity in Brazilian tropical dry forests across multiple vegetation domains. Environmental Research Letters. 12. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aa5f2a

Abstract: Understanding the environmental drivers of biodiversity persistence and community organization in natural ecosystems is of great importance for planning the conservation of those ecosystems. This comprehension is even more important in severely threatened ecosystems. In this context, we analyzed ant communities in tropical dry forests (TDFs) in Brazil. These forests are embedded within other biomes, such as Cerrado and Caatinga. In this study, we asked whether (i) ant species richness and composition changes between TDFs within different vegetation domains; (ii) whether ant species richness and b-diversity increase north-to-south, possibly related to changes in tree richness and tree density; and (iii) species replacement contributes relatively more to b-diversity than does nestedness. We found that species composition is unique to each TDF within different biomes, and that species richness and b-diversity differ among the vegetation domains, being smaller in the Caatinga. We also found that replacement contributes most to b-diversity, although this contribution is lower in Caatinga than in Cerrado. We show that regional context is the main driver of species diversity, which is likely to be driven by both historical and ecological mechanisms. By analyzing large spatial scale variation in TDF environmental characteristics, we were able to evaluate how ant diversity changes along an environmental gradient. The high levels of species replacement and unique species composition of each region indicates that, to fully conserve TDFs, we need to have various conservation areas distributed across the entire range of vegetation domains in which these forests can be found. Thus, we demonstrate that a landscape-wise planning is urgent and necessary in order to preserve tropical dry forests.