Ants are tiny creatures that are often overlooked in our everyday lives. Yet, there are more than 15.000 species of ants on Earth, and their total biomass is higher than that of all humans combined. They invented agriculture more than 50 million years ago, turn more soil than earthworms, can lift 5,000 times their bod weight, and can form supercolonies that span across continents. With the third largest tropical forest in the world, Indonesia is home to thousands of ant species, many of them unknown to science. This book documents more than 300 ant species that were found in rainforests and agroforestry of Jambi Province, Sumatra, and includes a recently updated Identification Key to the ant genera of Southeast Asia. Studying this book will bring you closer to our planet’s fascinating diversity, and the little things that run our world. This book will be a great starting point for those who want to know more about the ants of Southeast Asia, as well as a valuable resource for scientists and students studying ants this part of the world. All in all, this book is a compendium of the ants of Jambi, Sumatra, and embodies a starting point for further ant research in Indonesia.
The conversion of natural ecosystems to agricultural land is one of the most important drivers of biodiversity decline worldwide, particularly in the tropics. Species loss is typically trait‐associated, leading to filtering of disturbance‐resistant species during community assembly, which affects ecosystem functioning and evolutionary potential of communities. To understand the ecological and phylogenetic impact of rainforest conversion to agricultural systems, we combine analysis of nesting habit, feeding habit, colony size, and body size of canopy ants (Formicidae) with a phylogenetic analysis of species collected in four land‐use systems in Sumatra, Indonesia: (1) lowland tropical rainforest, (2) jungle rubber (extensive rubber agroforest), and smallholder plantations of (3) rubber and (4) oil palm. Canopy ant communities in these land‐use systems differed in trait composition, with a larger proportion of generalist nesting and generalist‐omnivore feeding species in oil palm compared to rainforest and a larger proportion of generalist nesters and species with large colonies (>1000 individuals) in rubber than in rainforest. Traits of canopy ant communities in jungle rubber were more similar to those in rainforest than to those in rubber and oil palm plantations. In rainforest, mean pairwise phylogenetic distance was lower than expected for random community assembly, but did not differ from random in the other land‐use systems. Of the traits nesting habit, feeding habit, and colony size, only feeding habit exhibited phylogenetic signal. Our results show that rainforest conversion to agricultural systems is accompanied by shifts in trait composition of canopy ant communities. Further, our results argue against environmental filtering of closely related canopy ant species as the major community assembly mechanism in plantation systems, but suggest that the Sumatran lowland rainforests harbor recently diverged endemic ant species that are particularly vulnerable to rainforest conversion to agricultural systems. Given the importance of ants for tropical ecosystems, the ecological differences among ant communities along the land‐use gradient might have important consequences for ecosystem functioning and services in plantation systems.
Tropical rainforests around the world are rapidly being converted into cash crop agricultural systems. The associated massive losses of plant and animal species lead to changes in arthropod food webs and the energy fluxes therein. These changes are poorly understood, in particular in the extremely biodiverse canopies of tropical ecosystems. Using canopy fogging followed by stable isotope and energy flux analyses, we show that land‐use conversion from rainforest to rubber and oil palm plantations not only causes a drastic reduction in energy fluxes of up to 75%, but also shifts fluxes among trophic groups. While rainforest featured high levels of both herbivory and algae‐microbivory, and a balanced ratio of herbivory to predation, relative fluxes were shifted towards predation in rubber and towards herbivory in oil palm plantations, indicating profound shifts in ecosystem functioning. Our results highlight that the ongoing loss of animal biodiversity and biomass in tropical canopies degrades animal‐driven functions and restructures canopy food webs.
Click beetles (Family Elateridae) are the largest family of beetles (Order Coleoptera) in superfamily Elateroidea that play an important role in the ecosystem, either as herbivores, predators and rhizophag. Land-use change can have a negative effect on diversity and abundance of click beetles. The aim of this research was to study the diversity and species composition of click beetles at different land-use types in Jambi. This research was carried out in Harapan Rainforest landscape that consists of 4 different land-use, i.e forest, jungle rubber, rubber plantation, and oil palm plantation. Click beetles were collected by fogging method in the morning and fogger directed toward the higher canopy for 20 min. The insect was collected in 16 traps that were installed under plant canopy, then the sample was sorted and identified in the laboratory. In a total of 2.042 individuals click beetles were collected, belonging to 7 subfamilies, 23 genera, and 59 morphospecies. Species richness and abundance of click beetles were higher in forest systems, while the lowest species richness was found in oil palm plantation and the lowest abundance was found in rubber plantation. Common click beetles species found in each land-use have consisted of morphospecies Melanoxanthus sp.01 (Elaterinae: Melanoxanthus). This research showed that different land-use types in Harapan Rainforest influenced the diversity, abundance, and species composition of click beetles. In conclusion, that habitat transformation has an impact on the loss of click beetles communities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.