Abstract
Ecological succession is a complex processes involving changes in the structure of plant community and it is an important factor determining the structure of arboreal ants assemblages, but little is known about the effects of succession on ant assemblages in regions of Tropical Dry Forests (TDFs), such as the Brazilian Caatinga. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of ecological succession on the richness and species composition of arboreal ants in fragments of Caatinga, testing the following hypothesis: i) the richness of arboreal ants increases along a gradient of forest succession, in response to tree richness and/or density; ii) species composition of arboreal ants differs among stages of forest succession due to differences in vegetation structure in theses stages. This study was conducted in 15 plots distributed in three areas with different stages of secondary succession (early, intermediate and late). Tree density and richness were used as surrogate of vegetation structure. Ants were sampled using the technique of beating the foliage and baited pitfall traps, where five trees were sampled per plot, totaling 75 individual trees sampled. We sampled 37 species of ants, distributed in 16 genera and five subfamilies. Ant richness differed among stages of succession and seasons, with higher number of species in the late succession and rainy period, also increasing with tree richness and density. Besides, there was a distinct composition of ant species among stages of succession and seasons. Results obtained in this study reinforce the importance of using ants as environmental bioindicators, since the sensitivity to environmental variations of this group enables us to differentiate early and late successional stages of forest succession in Caatinga environment.
Highlights
There is a consensus that along a gradient of secondary succession, environments in late stages of regeneration tend to have greater species richness of arthropods than more disturbed habitats
Ant species richness has usually been positively associated with habitat structure and its association is more pronounced at local scale, mainly at sites with higher resource availability, diversity of microhabitats and a greater number of nesting sites (Ribas et al, 2003; Marques & Del-Claro, 2006; Ribas & Schoereder, 2007; Pacheco & Vasconcelos, 2012; Fagundes et al, 2015)
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of ecological succession on the structure of arboreal ant assemblages in areas of Caatinga, testing the following hypotheses: i) the species richness of arboreal ants increases along a gradient of secondary succession, in response to season, tree species richness and/or density; ii) species composition of arboreal ants differs among seasons and stages of secondary succession
Summary
There is a consensus that along a gradient of secondary succession, environments in late stages of regeneration tend to have greater species richness of arthropods than more disturbed habitats (in early stages of succession). The idea that more arthropods species can be find in environments with high complexity (i.e. high species richness and/or abundance of trees) along a successional gradient has been demonstrated in studies using different groups of insects such as beetles, termites, butterflies (Romero-Alcaraz & Avila, 2000; Tewset al., 2004; Quesada et al, 2009; Neves et al, 2010a; Vasconcellos et al, 2010; Neves et al, 2014) Among these groups, ants have been the subject of several studies that seek to understand how species richness and composition has been influenced by vegetation structure (Leal, 2003; Ribas et al, 2003; Corrêa, 2006; Ribas & Schoereder, 2007; Vargas et al, 2007; Neves et al, 2010b; Gomes et al, 2014; Klimes et al, 2012). Commonly show a strong territorial behavior (Schoener, 1970; Bernstein, 1975; Espírito-Santo et al, 2009; Ribeiro et al, 2013a; Dáttilo et al, 2015), and changes in vegetation structure due to ecological succession may result in an increase of aggression and monopolization of space, leading a shift in the species composition
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