Diversity, spatial distribution, and sampling for ant management decision‐making in integrated pest management programs in citrus groves

Abstract

Ants play important ecological roles, such as predation on other arthropods, seed dispersal, and soil structure maintenance. In citrus agroecosystems, ants are considered a secondary pest. The damage they cause is indirect through the disruption of the biological control of pests, especially honeydew producers. In integrated pest management programs, adequate and precise sampling methods are required to accurately determine the need for chemical ant control to minimize the economic and environmental costs of unnecessary chemical treatments and to reduce the risk of crop loss by pests. In Mediterranean citrus groves, eight ant species that differed in abundance and frequency have been found foraging on citrus trees: Lasius grandis Forel, Pheidole pallidula (Nylander), Plagiolepis pygmaea (Latreille), Formica gerardi Bondroit, Formica rufibarbis Fabricius, Camponotus sylvaticus (Olivier), Linepithema humile (Mayr), and Tapinoma erraticum (Latreille) (all Hymenoptera: Formicidae). The trunk was selected as the most efficient sampling unit to establish the monitoring method. Aggregation indices on the trunk of these species were calculated, and enumerative and binomial sampling methods were developed for the most frequent species, L. grandis and Ph. pallidula. Ant species differed in spatial distributions within citrus orchards, and required different sample sizes to estimate population abundance. The minimum sample size required, taking into account the maximum average abundance found -44.1 L. humile, 17.3 L. grandis, and 3.5 Ph. pallidula per trunk per min -, would be 28, 25, and 54 trees, respectively.

Impact of the Invasive Argentine Ant in Citrus Agroecosystems: Effects on the Diversity and Frequency of Native Ant Species Foraging on Tree Canopy

“…Ant communities of Mediterranean citrus orchards have been studied by several authors [ 18 , 20 , 21 , 41 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ]. However, almost no studies addressed the impact of invasive species on the native ant community in this agroecosystem.…”

“…The method used was direct search by hand collection, considered the most efficient technique to estimate the diversity of ant species [ 39 , 40 ]. This method has proved effective in other ant studies conducted in Mediterranean citrus groves [ 20 , 21 , 41 ]. It records the presence of species inhabiting a habitat element and allows listing the ant fauna in relatively short time by experienced collectors [ 42 ].…”

Development of a PCR-based method for the screening of potential predators of the African citrus psyllid Trioza erytreae (Del Guercio)

“…The most frequent species in citrus trees in Spain is L. grandis, that together with L. humile, were the most abundant ants in the sampled citrus trees. Both species feed mainly on carbohydrates and have been reported attending several honeydew-producing hemipterans in citrus crops (Calabuig et al, 2014;Martínez-Ferrer et al, 2003;Martínez-Ferrer and Campos-Rivela, 2017;Pekas et al, 2011;Zina, 2008). However, both ant species are omnivorous.…”

Ant diversity inhabited oil palm plantations in a peatland in Sumatra, Indonesia

“…In addition to oil palm plantations, studies of ant diversity have been carried out in many plantation habitats, including coffee (Urrutia-Escobar and Armbrecht 2013), mango (Carvalheiro et al 2012;Diame et al 2015), citrus (Calabuig et al 2015;Martínez-Ferrer and Campos-Rivela 2017), rubber (Hosoishi et al 2013), and eucalyptus (Suguituru et al 2011;de Queiroz et al 2020). This is due to the simplification of the agroecosystems because industrialization of agriculture can lead to loss of animal biodiversity related to both vertebrates and invertebrates (Urrutia-Escobar and Armbrecht 2013; de Queiroz et al 2020).…”