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The closely related Camponotus renggeri and Camponotus rufipes (subgenus Myrmothrix) often live in sympatry in the Brazilian 'cerrado' savannah, and are distinguished by nuances in their blackish body colour and by the colour of the legs. Variation in morphological characters, however, makes species separation difficult and it has been suggested that the two species should be merged into one. As appropriate species identification is essential for studies in ecology and evolutionary biology, here we examine how natural history data (habitat preference, nesting biology) and molecular tools (nuclear and mitochondrial markers) perform in distinguishing sympatric populations of C. renggeri and C. rufipes. In our study area, C. rufipes was only seen in cerrado sensu stricto (scrub of shrubs and trees), whereas C. renggeri occurred in cerrado sensu stricto and cerradão (closed woodland). Camponotus renggeri nested underground or in fallen/erect dead trunks, whereas C. rufipes constructed distinctive nests of dry straw. Nest persistence through time was higher in C. rufipes, especially in the hot/rainy season. Nest distribution was random in C. renggeri and aggregated in C. rufipes. Molecular data consistently showed that, regardless of the source of genetic variation, the uppermost hierarchical level of divergence is observed between species, unambiguously differentiating the individuals identified as C. renggeri and C. rufipes as two independent evolutionary lineages. Mitochondrial data throughout the species' geographical ranges further confirmed a consistent genetic divergence between C. renggeri and C. rufipes along their distribution in Brazil. Our integrated approach combining morphological traits with natural history and molecular data confirms that C. renggeri and C. rufipes are valid species that can be separated in our study area relatively well.

Animals may host diverse bacterial communities that can markedly affect their behavioral physiology, ecology, and vulnerability to disease. Fungus-farming ants represent a classical example of mutualism that depends on symbiotic microorganisms. Unraveling the bacterial communities associated with fungus-farming ants is essential to understand the role of these microorganisms in the ant-fungus symbiosis. The bacterial community structure of five species of fungus-farmers (non-leaf-cutters; genera Mycocepurus, Mycetarotes, Mycetophylax, and Sericomyrmex) from three different environments in the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest (lowland forest, restinga forest, and sand dunes) was characterized with amplicon-based Illumina sequencing of 16 S ribosomal RNA gene. Possible differences in bacterial communities between ants internal to the nest (on the fungus garden) and external foragers were also investigated. Our results on the richness and diversity of associated bacteria provide novel evidence that these communities are host- and colony-specific in fungus-farming ants. Indeed, the bacterial communities associated with external foragers differ among the five species, and among colonies of the same species. Furthermore, bacterial communities from internal ants vs. foragers do not differ or differ only slightly within each ant species. This study highlights the importance of describing ant-associated bacterial communities to better understand this host-bacterial interaction in the social environment of insect colonies and provides the foundation for future studies on the ecological and evolutionary processes that drive the success of fungus-farming ants.

Ants, an ecologically successful and numerically dominant group of animals, play key ecological roles as soil engineers, predators, nutrient recyclers, and regulators of plant growth and reproduction in most terrestrial ecosystems. Further, ants are widely used as bioindicators of the ecological impact of land use. We gathered information of ant species in the Atlantic Forest of South America. The ATLANTIC ANTS data set, which is part of the ATLANTIC SERIES data papers, is a compilation of ant records from collections (18,713 records), unpublished data (29,651 records), and published sources (106,910 records; 1,059 references), including papers, theses, dissertations, and book chapters published from 1886 to 2020. In total, the data set contains 153,818 ant records from 7,636 study locations in the Atlantic Forest, representing 10 subfamilies, 99 genera, 1,114 ant species identified with updated taxonomic certainty, and 2,235 morphospecies codes. Our data set reflects the heterogeneity in ant records, which include ants sampled at the beginning of the taxonomic history of myrmecology (the 19th and 20th centuries) and more recent ant surveys designed to address specific questions in ecology and biology. The data set can be used by researchers to develop strategies to deal with different macroecological and region‐wide questions, focusing on assemblages, species occurrences, and distribution patterns. Furthermore, the data can be used to assess the consequences of changes in land use in the Atlantic Forest on different ecological processes. No copyright restrictions apply to the use of this data set, but we request that authors cite this data paper when using these data in publications or teaching events.

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