Suparoek Watanasit and Trirat Nhu-eard

pp. 151 - 161

Abstract

Ants play important roles in tropical rainforest ecosystems. In southern Thailand, many such areas have been extensively logged and replaced by rubber plantations. Since changes to the environment can cause changes to the diversity of
flora and fauna, the objectives of this study were to determine habitat influences on the ant composition between homogenous and heterogeneous rubber plantations, and to investigate if any environmental factors can be directly correlated with
changes in the ant community. Three 100 m–line-transects, spaced 100 m apart, were laid out at two study sites. Four sampling
methods, hand collecting (HC), leaf litter sampling (LL), honey bait (HB) and soil sampling (SS), were used to sample ants.
Temperature, humidity, and precipitation were recorded. Samples were collected every two months from June 2004 to April
2005. The results showed that a total of six subfamilies (Aenictinae, Dolichoderinae, Formicinae, Myrmicinae, Ponerinaem
and Pseudomyrmecinae), comprising 29 genera and 87 species were found in the two study sites. The dominant genera were
Pheidole and Crematogaster, followed by Pheidologeton and Pachycondyla. The sampling methods used in this study
indicated that LL and HC were most suitable for sampling ants, and any combination of sampling methods detected more
ant species than a single method did. Detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) grouped ant species between the two types
of rubber plantation, and also divided ant species into three groups by sampling method: HC group, SS group and LL+HB
group. DCA did not group ant species by seasonal changes, however. Further, canonical correspondence analysis detected
no effect of temperature, humidity, or precipitation on the ant community.