Competence of Litter Ants for Rapid Biodiversity Assessments

Abstract

Rapid Biodiversity Assessment approaches associated with focusing taxa have overcome many of the problems related to large scale surveys. This study examined the suitability of litter ants as a focusing taxon by checking whether diversity and species assemblages of litter ants reflect the overall picture of arthropod diversity and assemblages in leaf litter in two vegetation types: secondary forest and pine plantation in Upper Hanthana forest reserve, Sri Lanka. In each vegetation type, arthropods were sampled using three sampling methods (Winkler extraction, hand collection, and pitfall traps) along three 100 m line transects. From the two sites, 1887 litter ants (34 species) and 3488 litter arthropods (52 species) were collected. Species assemblages composition of both ants and other arthropods differed significantly between the two sites (ANOSIM, = 0.001) with both groups generating distinct clusters for the two sites (SIMPROF, = 0.001). But there was no significant correlation ( > 0.05) between abundance and richness of litter ants and those of other arthropods in both vegetation types. The overall finding suggests that the litter ants do not reflect the holistic picture of arthropod diversity and assemblages in leaf litter, but the quality of the habitat for the survival of all litter arthropods.

Land use system effects on biodiversity of litter ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in tropical rainforest, South Region of Cameroon.

“…However, few studies have provided such information for leaf litter ants (Ottonetti et al 2006). Because of their ecological signi cance in forest ecosystems, ants are considered as suitable bioindicator species for biodiversity monitoring Saumya et al 2017). Moreover, ants occupy various trophic levels and make substantial contribution to ecosystem processes (Jouquet et al 2006;Tchoudjin et al 2020).…”

Assessing the impact of mining exploration infrastructure on ground-dwelling arthropod communities using DNA metabarcoding and habitat characteristics.

“…However, unlike more wellstudied focal groups, such as ants, there is limited knowledge on springtail taxonomy, and many species are yet to be described (Jordana & Greenslade, 2020). Further, focusing only on certain invertebrate taxa may not be re ective of whole ecosystem dynamics as some groups may not interact with each other spatially or have comparable taxonomic richness (Khosravi and Hemami, 2019;Prendergast et al, 1993;van Jaarsveld et al, 1998), and thus they may not fully encapsulate the changes and impacts on the diversity of multiple taxonomic groups and total arthropod assemblages (Siddig et al, 2016;Silva et al, 2017). Therefore, a direct comparison of patterns detected by all arthropods present in samples, along with particular groups such as ants and springtails, is valuable for validating the use of indicator groups.…”

Diversity and species composition of ants at coffee agroforestry systems in East Java, Indonesia: Effect of habitat condition and landscape composition

“…Biodiversity loss can affect agricultural sustainability and environmental quality (Udawatta et al 2019). The model system for studying the effect of agriculture on biodiversity is coffee production (Otero-Jiménez et al 2018) and ants become the object to assess biodiversity (Silva et al 2017). In South America, coffee plantations were proven to be the main reason for biodiversity loss across taxa, including ants (Philpott et al 2008).…”