Abstract
Despite the environmental and economic importance of Pantanal, there are few studies quantifying the influence of sazonality and spatial variation on biological diversity in this ecosystem. In this context, the present work aimed to study the assemblage of ants associated with macrophytes during the flood and dry period of Paraguay river, in marginal environments in the Pantanal of Porto Murtinho, Mato Grosso do Sul. We observed a wide variation in the temporal distribution of the diversity of the assemblages of ants, since from 37 species, 36 occurred in the dry and 20 in the flood period. Of the total of macrophyte species observed, in only 12.5% we found a more specific correlation with ants that were nesting in spaces provided by plants representing a total of 10.52% of the species analized.
Highlights
According to Lewinsohn et al (2005) Pantanal is one of the most unknown biomes of Brazil, and the functional role of invertebrates in this ecosystem is a strong attribute for its conservation
This study aimed to evaluate the ant assemblages that occur during the change in the disposition of macrophytes during the season of flood and drought in marginal environments of the Paraguay River in Porto Murtinho Pantanal, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil
Delabie, using by reference the Coleção do Laboratório de Mirmecologia do Centro de Pesquisas do Cacau (CEPEC), following the nomenclature adopted by Bolton (1994; 1995b and 2003)
Summary
Floodplain environments with flooding regime harbor a high biological diversity (Welcomme, 1985; LoweMcConnell, 1999) as a result of the spatial and dynamic complexity existing primarily in habitats with these characteristics (Ward et al, 1999; Robinson et al, 2002). Junk et al (1989) proposed the “flood pulse concept”, which considers the hydrological aspects along with the geomorphological aspects, responsible for spikes in floods and droughts, with different amplitudes and periods along the hydrographic basin and consider this seasonality the greatest driving force of biota composition in the rivers of the floodplain.The initial step of knowledge of available natural resources in a region corresponds to the collection and taxonomic identification of species that make up the fauna and flora, in order to facilitate the acquisition of subsidies for more detailed studies of ecological characteristics of their habitats. According to Lewinsohn et al (2005) Pantanal is one of the most unknown biomes of Brazil, and the functional role of invertebrates in this ecosystem is a strong attribute for its conservation Among these organisms, the ant fauna is one of the most successful group of insects, dominant in number and biomass in several environments (Harada & Adis, 1997; Santos et al, 2003; Battirola et al, 2005), and considered abundant, easy to collect and identify as well as relatively quick to respond to changes in their habitats (Ribas et al, 2003). In addition to its relatively high local abundance, they are especially rich in species and diverse in terms of foraging habits, nesting, among other ecological functions (Blüthgen & Feldhaar, 2010)
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