Dominance in a ground-dwelling ant community of banana agroecosystem.

Dominique Carval,Philippe Tixier,Violaine Cotté,Rémi Resmond,Benjamin Perrin

doi:10.1002/ece3.2570

Abstract

In tropical ecosystems, ants represent a substantial portion of the animal biomass and contribute to various ecosystem services, including pest regulation and pollination. Dominant ant species are known to determine the structure of ant communities by interfering in the foraging of other ant species. Using bait and pitfall trapping experiments, we performed a pattern analysis at a fine spatial scale of an ant community in a very simplified and homogeneous agroecosystem, that is, a single‐crop banana field in Martinique (French West Indies). We found that the community structure was driven by three dominant species (Solenopsis geminata, Nylanderia guatemalensis, and Monomorium ebeninum) and two subdominant species (Pheidole fallax and Brachymyrmex patagonicus). Our results showed that dominant and subdominant species generally maintained numerical dominance at baits across time, although S. geminata, M. ebeninum, and B. patagonicus displayed better abilities to maintain dominance than P. fallax and N. guatemalensis. Almost all interspecific correlations between species abundances, except those between B. patagonicus and N. guatemalensis, were symmetrically negative, suggesting that interference competition prevails in this ground‐dwelling ant community. However, we observed variations in the diurnal and nocturnal foraging activity and in the daily occurrence at baits, which may mitigate the effect of interference competition through the induction of spatial and temporal niche partitioning. This may explain the coexistence of dominant, subdominant, and subordinate species in this very simplified agroecosystem, limited in habitat structure and diversity.

Highlights

Ants are ubiquitous, diverse, and abundant and are key components of ecosystems
We found that the community of ground-dwelling ants was dominated by Solenopsis geminata, Monomorium ebeninum, Nylanderia guatemalensis, Pheidole fallax, and Brachymyrmex patagonicus
Our results showed that species generally maintained numerical dominance of a subplot throughout each 180-min sampling date

Summary

Introduction

Diverse, and abundant and are key components of ecosystems. The type of “momentary” community (which we called hereafter a group) observed at sampling time 1 are likely to be indicative of the colonies that was spatially close to the subplot (see below in Subplot scale dynamics and correlations between ant species abundances). | 8621 activity (the percentage of recorded pitfall traps and the mean abundance) of S. geminata, M. ebeninum, P. fallax, Brachymyrmex patagonicus, C. obscurior, and P. longicornis was greater during the day than at night, while N. guatemalensis was more active at night than during the day (Table 2).

Results

Conclusion