Impacts of Clear Cutting on Diversity of Ground Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Pine Plantation Forest in Sukabumi Forest Management Unit, West Java

A Budiaman,F Haikal,N F Haneda,A I Nugraha

doi:10.7226/jtfm.27.1.42

Abstract

Clear cutting is the main source of timber production of plantation forest management in Indonesia, but this activity disrupts the lives of ground ants. It is rarely known how clear cutting affects the ground ant community in the Indonesian plantation forest. The study aimed to analyze the impacts of clear cutting on the diversity of ground ants in the pine plantation forest of Sukabumi, West Java. The study compared the community structure of ground ants before clear cutting and after clear cutting. Ground ants were collected using a pitfall trap. Trapping of ground ants was carried out six days before the clear cutting and six days after the clear cutting. The ground ants were identified to the morphospecies level and classified into their functional role. The results showed that clear cutting alters the community indices of ground ants. Abundance, morphospecies composition, diversity index, richness index, and evenness index of ground ants after clear cutting was lower compared with those before clear cutting. The clear-felled area due to clear cutting provided favorable habitat for the generalist groups of ground ants, but negatively affected the predator and forager groups of ground ants. These findings can be used as an important factor in the development of environmenllyt-friendly forest harvesting systems in Indonesian plantation forests.

Highlights

Plantation forests are the main source of log production in Indonesia
Six types of forest harvesting systems are applied to the plantation forest management at Perum Perhutani, i.e. clear cutting, retention cutting, clearance cutting, maintenance cutting, unexpected cutting, and thinning
The number of individual ground ants was 1011 individuals belonging to 4 subfamilies and 21 morphospecies

Summary

Introduction

Plantation forests are the main source of log production in Indonesia. The plantation forests have a strategic role in the Indonesian forestry sector. In 2011, the contribution of the forestry sector to the national gross domestic Brutto of Indonesia reached 2.3% (CBS, 2013). Around 3.5% of log production from plantations forests are produced from plantation forests in the island of Java, which is managed by the state-owned forestry company (Perum Perhutani). Log production of Perum Perhutani was 636,092 m3 in 2017 (MEF, 2019). Six types of forest harvesting systems are applied to the plantation forest management at Perum Perhutani, i.e. clear cutting, retention cutting, clearance cutting, maintenance cutting, unexpected cutting, and thinning. The most common type of forest harvesting system applied at Perum Perhutani is thinning and clear cutting (Perum Perhutani, 2006)

Methods

Results

Conclusion