The segregation of land-use intensity signifies an important change in land use in lac insect agroecosystem of Southwestern China. Farming conversions have led to a highly diversified landscape, with a mosaic made up of patches of land with different succession, from cultivated lands to closed forest. Our aim here is to characterize ant assemblages within this mosaic and identify key ant community metrics and species that can be used for bioindication. The habitats supported different level of ant species richness and abundance. For ants captured by pitfall trapping, the mean plot species richness in lac plantation was significantly higher than that in dry land (deforestation land-use). For ants captured by sweep netting and foliage shaking, there was significant difference among lac plantation, dry land and secondary forest occurring from afforestation of lac plantations, with lac plantation having greatest species richness. Ant species composition was different among the three land-use habitats. Seven of the fifteen most common species had statistically different abundances or occurrence within the three land-uses. Thirteen species had statistically significant different distributions among land-use habitats (among them three species were captured by sweep netting and foliage shaking). Ten species had statistically significant habitat associations determined by IndVal analysis. Among these ten species, five ant species were associated with secondary forest, two with lac plantation, and three with dry land. Lac plantation integrated with lac-production and farming is clearly an important land-use protecting ant diversity, and thus having great conservation potential. The use of ants as bio-indicators is a promising method for determining ecological responses to human land use in China.

We describe grasshopper (Acridoidea) diversity in diff erentially used lac ecosystems located in Lüchun County, Yunnan Province, China. Grasshoppers were sampled by sweep netting in 13 plots, representing four land utilization ecosystems: 1) secondary natural lac forest occurred from aff orestation of lac plantations (3 plots); 2) lac plantations (3 plots); 3) crop lands (3 plots); and 4) agricultural paddy fi elds (4 plots). A one-year sampling eff ort yielded 1,385 acridids, representing 31 species in fi ve families. Grasshopper abundance and richness were correlated to plant resources, which, in turn, correlated to land utilization. Local grasshopper assemblages were reasonable indicators of habitat diff erences, although they were not consistent with land utilization intensity. In term of grasshopper biodiversity conservation and economic development, the lac agroecosystem, which is composed by lac plantations, paddy fi elds and crop lands, most likely is the better choice for a balanced approach between conservation and development in mountainous areas of southwest China than any of the any of those areas by themselves because this combination of land use maintains the highest number of species and allows human farming activities.

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