ANT COMMUNITIES IN THREE SPECIES USED IN URBAN ARBORIZATION IN SÃO LEOPOLDO, STATE OF RIO GRANDE DO SUL, BRAZIL
Keywords:
Ant, trees, Caesalpinia ferrea, Tabebuia chrysotricha , Tabebuia roseaAbstract
To contribute to the knowledge of the local ant fauna, this work aimed to evaluate the richness of composition of ant communities in different tree species used in urban arborization: Caesalpinia ferrea, Tabebuia chrysotricha and Tabebuia rosea. At the campus of the Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, in São Leopoldo, Brazil, ten individuals of each tree species above-mentioned were selected. Monthly collections of ants were carried on through 12 months: at each tree, a day per month, during five minutes, all the ants found on the trunk, between the heights of 0.80m and 1.65m from the level of the ground, were collected. In total, 6,248 ants, distributed amongst 28 species which belong to four subfamilies, were collected. In C. ferrea it was found the greatest richness (S=22), followed by the richness observed in T. chrysotricha (S=19) and, finally, in T. rosea (S=14). Ten (35.7%) of the 28 collected species were common to the three communities; five (17.9%) species were exclusive to C. ferrea; four (14.3%), to T. rosea, and two (7.1%), were found only in T. chrysotricha. The richness of the ant species, in each tree species, was reduced in winter, in comparison with the richness found during the other seasons. The results showed that in the tree species evaluated, the ants are only occasional explorers of available resources that change along the time, and no species-specific associations were observed.
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