Morphological Characterization of Ant Species Found Within the Tropical Rainforest Zone of Calabar, Nigeria

Abstract

Aim: This study was carried out to unravel the morphological variations that exist among ant species in the Rainforest zone of the University of Calabar Community. Method: Ants were collected from three locations (Botanical Garden, Cameroon and Unical Farms) within the University of Calabar. Direct hand-picking method and the pitfall traps method were utilized for sample collection. Thereafter, different morphological parameters including total length, head width, eye length, etc. were measured and analysed. Results: The results obtained showed a dominance of Formicinae with 3 species (35 %), followed by Myrmicinae with 2 species (30 %), and lastly Ponerinae and Dolichoderinae and Dorylinae with one species (5 %) each. A total of 7, 4 and 2 ant species were collected from the University of Calabar Botanical Garden, Cameroun and University of Calabar Farm sites respectively. Out of the 7 ant species, 3 species (50 %) were common to all the locations on campus, while another 2 species (45 %) were found exclusive to the Botanical Garden site. Conclusions: This work established that the morphology of ant faunas found in various areas of the campus varied significantly. It also concluded that the morphological space occupied by the ant fauna of the Botanical Garden was significantly larger than those collected from the other locations.