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The maintenance of species diversity in modified and natural habitats is a central focus of conservation biology. The Iberá Nature Reserve (INR) protects highly diverse ecosystems in northeastern Argentina, including one of the largest freshwater wetlands in South America. Livestock grazing is one of the major disturbances to these ecosystems; however, its effect on ant diversity is poorly known. The objective of this work was to study the effect of savanna versus grassland and grazing on the structure and composition of subtropical terrestrial ants focusing on the particular response of the native red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta Buren. Unbaited pitfall traps were used to capture worker ants in 25 grazed and 20 nongrazed sites. Fifty ant species were collected. The savanna showed more species, individuals, biomass, and functional groups of ants than the grassland. S. invicta was the most frequently captured (61.4%) and numerically dominant species; however Camponotus punctulatus punctulatus Mayr showed the highest biomass. Grazing simplified vegetation structure in both habitats, but its impact on vegetation seemed only to promote a higher total biomass especially in the grassland, and/or functional groups, favoring occurrence of hot-climate specialists in the savanna. This study revealed that habitat type strongly affected the organization of the terrestrial ant assemblages at the INR. However, as in other studies, we did not find clear evidence that habitat modification by grazing significantly affected terrestrial ant assemblages. The weak grazing influence could be the consequence of the short enclosure time as to recover the original ant communities, the differential response of ant species to habitat type, and/or the resilience of ants.

Resumen. A partir de dos casos de éxito en la generación, organización y gestión de áreas naturales como espacios protegidos en Latinoamérica, se avanza hacia la traslación y adaptación del proceso de Producción de Naturaleza a un ejemplo europeo: el área interautonóminca del Maestrazgo-Els Ports en España. Las estrategias de comunicación y articulación para el desarrollo de esta iniciativa llevan en marcha desde un plano informal desde el año 2020, en un área histórico-cultural y natural que cuenta con diversas diferencias, tanto en positivo como en negativo, con los ejemplos latinoamericanos que sirven de guía. La iniciativa Maestrazgo-Els Ports está recién dando sus primeros pasos y en los próximos años veremos si el enfoque de Producción de Naturaleza desarrollado en el Hemisferio Sur puede ser aplicado con éxito en un paisaje rural español y el tipo de ajustes necesarios para que esto suceda.   Palabras clave: producción de naturaleza, ecoturismo, parque nacional Iberá, áreas protegidas, ecosistemas naturales, desarrollo territorial, Gran Reserva de Mata Atlántica, orgullo comunitario, sentido de pertenencia.