Reduced benefits of ant occupation for ant-trees in oil palm compared with heavily logged forest

Houadria, Mickal; Feldhaar, Heike; Fiala, Brigitte; Leština, Dan; Chung, Arthur Y. C.; Salleh, Abang Sulaiman Abang; Justin, H.; Kokořová, Petra; Fayle, Tom M.

doi:10.1007/s13199-020-00684-x

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Besides, species conservation can promote ecosystem functions that also benefit human communities, such as biological pest control, for example (Grass et al, 2019). However, most studies on conversion from semi‐natural habitats to anthropogenic land uses address effects on community structure (e.g., species richness and composition), while the effects on ecosystem functions have been poorly studied (but see Tuma et al, 2019; Houadria et al, 2020). Filling this knowledge gap is even more important from the socioecological perspective of shifting cultivation because biodiversity loss can affect crucial ecosystem services for small farmers, such as pollination and pest control (Isaacs et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land‐use change in the Amazon decreases ant diversity but increases ant‐mediated predation

Wilker

Lasmar

Schmidt

et al. 2023

Insect Conserv Diversity

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1. Food production in Amazonian traditional societies often occurs through shifting cultivation that uses few pesticides and relies on ecosystem services provided by natural enemies. However, these sustainable agricultural practices are being threatened by increasing livestock and mechanised agriculture.2. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of the conversion from Amazon Forest to anthropogenic land uses (shifting cultivation and pasture) on αand β-diversity, functional groups, and ant-mediated predation.3. Three types of habitats were sampled: forest (eight sites), shifting cultivation (five sites) and pasture (seven sites). The ant assembly of each site was sampled using pitfall traps in the epigeic and hypogeic strata. Beetle larvae were used to evaluate the predation function.4. Negative effects on epigeic ants and functional groups were found to be greater in sites where anthropogenic land use was more intensive (pasture) than in those where it was less intensive (shifting cultivation). Furthermore, this change increased the predation of insects in shifting cultivation and pasture compared to that in forest. This increase in insect predation was due to high activity of Ectatomma brunneum Smith, 1858, an environmental indicator for shifting cultivation and pasture.5. The increase in the number of predations in shifting cultivation and pasture may be beneficial from the perspective of biological pest control. However, this relationship needs to be better understood because the high presence and predatory activity of Ectatomma brunneum in these environments may be one mechanism by which αand β-diversity decrease through antagonistic interactions and dominance.

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