Impacts of land use types on ant communities in a tropical forest margin (Oumé - Côte d'Ivoire)

Abstract

Land use and particularly agriculture is a leading cause of below ground biodiversity loss. However this fauna is known to play a key role in soil fertility and to offer many other ecosystem services. In order to better understand the effects of land use on ants which are major component of the tropical soil fauna, these insects were surveyed in the eight main land use types in Oume (Cote d’Ivoire). These included primary forest, secondary forest, multispecific tree plantations, 10-years old teak plantations, 4-years old teak plantations, food crops, cocoa plantations and fallows. Modified versions of the ants of leaf litter protocol and monolith method were used to sample the ants. Species richness, abundance, diversity and composition of ants varied among these habitats. Food crops and 4-years old teak plantations were the less species rich land use types. However they diverged in term of species composition. Forest habitats were the most species rich, reflecting their relative integrity. Ant subfamily Myrmicinae and genus Tetramorium were surrogate for indicating the pattern of species richness change between land uses. These results illustrated the sensibility of ants to changes in land use types and practices and encourage their inclusion in conservation orientated bio-monitoring.   Key words: Ants, soil biodiversity, land use types.