When is the best period to sample ants in tropical areas impacted by mining and in rehabilitation process?

Abstract

Fluctuating resources and conditions can regulate the community structure of ants, affecting their activities and interactions. This has important implications for the selection of sampling periods during bioindication studies. The aim of this study was to evaluate if the chosen sampling period influences the response of ant assemblage diversity and ecological function to mining impacts and rehabilitation age after mining. We used ant assemblage parameters, including arboreal, epigaeic and hypogaeic ant species richness and composition, seed-removing ant species richness and composition, and seed removal rate in areas impacted by mining and with different rehabilitation ages. We showed that in most cases the response is the same, regardless of sampling period. However, we suggest that ant sampling is best undertaken in the rainy period, when ant species richness reaches higher values and the assemblage composition presents a well-marked difference among the areas. We also indicate that the epigaeic ant assemblage is sufficient for evaluating mining impacts, but arboreal strata should also be sampled in rehabilitation scenarios.

Can anthropic fires affect epigaeic and hypogaeic Cerrado ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) communities in the same way?

“…Three of them were in different recovery times after intentional fire (one month, one year and two years) and the fourth area (with no documented fire occurrence at least in the last 5 years) was used as control. Rabello et al, 2015). At each point we installed two pitfall traps, in each pitfall trap we placed 200 ml of solution of water, detergent (0.6 %) and salt (0.4 %).…”

“…We established a 200 m transect in the middle of each area, and installed 10 sampling points at uniform intervals of 20 m (Cheli & Corley, 2010;Guimarães, Lasmar, Querido, Tanure, & Ribas, 2014;Vasconcelos et al, 2014;Rabello et al, 2015). At each point we installed two pitfall traps, in each pitfall trap we placed 200 ml of solution of water, detergent (0.6 %) and salt (0.4 %).…”

Seed removal by ants in Brazilian savanna: optimizing fieldwork

“…Ecological functions, such as seed removal, are extremely important for preservation of ecosystem stability (Naeem et al, 1999), due to regulatory processes of ecosystem functioning and the influence of several organisms in the ecosystem dynamics. However, such functions may be transformed or even lost due to landscape modifications caused by human interventions, which may even result in the Ants are frequently used as bioindicator organisms for evaluating different types of impacts, such as: agricultural practices (Armbrecht & Perfecto, 2003;Philpott et al, 2008), habitat fragmentation (Vasconcelos et al, 2006;Leal et al, 2012), fire (Parr et al, 2004;Andersen et al, 2006;Anjos et al, 2017) and mining (Dominguez-Haydar & Armbrecht, 2011;Rabello et al, 2015). Furthermore, ants are abundant in practically all environments, sensitive to environmental modifications and respond quickly to human disturbances (Ribas et al, 2012a;Schmidt et al, 2013).…”

“…: Zelikova & Breed, 2008;Bieber et al, 2014;Gallegos et al, 2014;Leal et al, 2014); however, there is no standardized sampling method for such purposes. For example, the period of time evaluated and the seed type used to evaluate the effect of environmental impact on seed removal by ants vary widely (Christianini et al, 2012;Bieber et al, 2014;Leal et al, 2014;Rabello et al, 2015). Sometimes, researchers may have similar aims and use different methodologies for evaluating this, so it would be interesting to standardize methodology when the aims are similar.This lack of a standardized methodology hampers the comparison of responses of seed removal by ants in different vegetation types, habitats and biomes and prevents further advances towards a broader understanding of patterns of ecosystem functioning in response to environmental impacts.…”

“…Other studies followed this process during the morning and/or afternoon, with different periods of time of observation (Parr et al, 2007;Christianini et al, 2012;Gallegos et al, 2014;Leal et al, 2014). In addition to varying time periods, seed removal experiments have also differed in the types of seeds used, with some using natural seeds (Christianini et al, 2007;Parr et al, 2007;Christianini et al, 2012;Leal et al, 2014), and others using artificial seeds (manipulated resource to resemble seeds or fruits), both with varying compositions (Uehara-Prado, 2005;Bieber et al, 2014;Rabello et al, 2015). Thus, this is the first step towards a standardized methodology for the evaluation of seed removal by ants, facilitating the comparison of results among different ecological studies.…”