Ants in the Hospital Environment: Ecological Parameters as Support for Future Management Strategies.

Abstract

Urban ants cause many losses to human society, and they represent a potential threat to public health in hospital environments due to their ability to transport pathogenic organisms. We evaluated several ecological parameters (richness, abundance, constancy, and evenness), their fluctuation during the seasons, and identified species that occur outside the natural range of the ant fauna of a hospital environment, as support for future management strategies. Ant sampling was held every 2months by using attractive bait traps in the morning and evening, leading to the sampling of 10,342 individuals belonging to six subfamilies and 26 species. Myrmicinae showed higher richness (n = 12) and abundance (n = 7336), with Pheidole susannae Forel being the most abundant species. The most constant species (100%) were P. susannae and Tetramorium simillimum (Smith). Among the most abundant species, Monomorium floricola (Jerdon) and Tapinoma melanocephalum (Fabricius) are considered as species that occur outside the natural range. No difference was observed between species richness and abundance. The Shannon (2.247), dominance (0.1395) and evenness indices (0.6897) indicated a stability of the community throughout the year with high diversity and low dominance of species. The sampled data constitute a new series of information on a long-term ecological approach to support future management strategies in hospital environments and allow for more efficient pest control.