An Army of Ants in the Defense of the Sacred: the Myrmecofauna (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of the Sacred Trees of Ipeiros (North West Greece)

Abstract

In mountainous Greece, cultural landscapes exhibit distinctive features, such as scattered trees marking village boundaries and sacred forests serving as locally adapted conservation systems. These sacred landscapes play a crucial role in protecting villages from natural hazards and providing essential resources for the community. The unique status of certain trees as "sacred" is maintained through supernatural fears and taboos associated with logging. While the significance of sacred forests for biodiversity is acknowledged, there is a lack of evaluation regarding the importance of individual aged trees for ant species. This study aims to fill this gap by documenting the dominant ant species associated with aged trees in sacred landscapes. Ant specimens were collected from sacred forests and individual old growth trees near churches in the Ipeiros region, providing insights into the association between tree species and ant communities. The research contributes to understanding the ecological dynamics of these culturally significant landscapes. Identification to species level provided species that are collected for the first time from the administrative area of Ipeiros, namely Camponotus gestroi Emery, 1878, Camponotus jaliensis Dalla Torre, 1893, and Camponotus samius Forel, 1889.