An assessment of leaf-litter and epigaeic ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) living in different landscapes of the Atlantic Forest Biome in the State of Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

Abstract:The Brazilian Atlantic Forest has a rich biodiversity increasingly threatened by human activities. Since the colonial period, the coast of the state of Bahia is among the most affected regions of Brazil by anthropic pressure. Bahia encloses Atlantic Forest remnants distributed in an area reaching 100-200 km along the east-west axis, by 1,000 km along the north-south axis, parallel to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. We report hereafter the results of an intensive field survey of leaf litter and epigaeic ants realized in forest remnants of the Atlantic Forest landscapes within the original extension of the biome in 11 localities distributed along four degrees of latitude in the state of Bahia. In each site, 16 plots were collected using pitfall and eight using Winkler traps. We identified 391 ant species belonging to 71 genera and nine subfamilies. Among all species recorded, 21 were common to the whole 11 localities, while 98 species were recorded in a single locality. This study highlights the richness and diversity of epigaeic and leaf-litter ants living in the northern part of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, and is one of the most representative soil ants' inventories ever done in this biome for a single state of Brazil.

Comparative evaluation of taxonomic and functional diversities of leaf-litter ants of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

“…These results confirm that the Brazilian Atlantic Forest is one of the tropical biomes that present the highest ant diversity (Silva and Brandão, 2014;Santos et al, 2017). An apparently insufficient sampling effort (considering all species), despite the large number of localities and samples, is a common situation found in studies of biodiversity all over the tropics (Leponce et al, 2004;Feitosa and Ribeiro, 2005;Delabie et al, 2007;Freitas et al, 2014;Santos et al, 2017), since many rare or tourist species continue to be encountered for the first time even after intense sampling efforts (Santos, 2003;Leponce et al, 2010). The influence of these species on the overall richness estimation is evident when the accumulation curves of Figure 2 are compared.…”

“…In a previous study, Silva and Brandão (2014) found 530 species of ants using Winkler traps in the largest series of ant species found in a single study in 26 localities along 3400 km of the Atlantic rainforest biome and a gradient of up to 20° latitude. For the state of Bahia, Santos et al (2017) performed one of the largest inventories of soil ants (using both pitfall and Winkler traps) in a single state of Brazil, recording 391 species of ants in 11 distinct Atlantic rainforest landscapes along approximately 1000 km. In the present study, despite a smaller geographic coverage, we sampled a larger number of Atlantic Forest sites than previous studies, finding a representative number of ants (364 species), which represents not only part of the diversity already recorded in the studies of Silva and Brandão (2014) and Santos et al (2017), but also many ant species not recorded in those two studies.…”

New Records and Potential Distribution of the ant Gracilidris pombero Wild & Cuezzo (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

“…Records recently published (Santos et al, 2017) obtained from ant surveys performed in several landscapes in the Atlantic Forest biome of the state of Bahia, Brazil, were also included in our analysis. In addition, we examined material deposited in the collection of the Laboratório de Mirmecologia in the Centro de Pesquisa do Cacau -CEPEC/ CEPLAC (CPDC) (Ilhéus, Bahia, Brazil), and which include specimens collected in the Cerrado and Pampas biomes, cocoa plantations, or urban areas.…”

A checklist of the non-leaf-cutting fungus-growing ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) from Colombia, with new biogeographic records

“…Distribution. Cyphomyrmex major is known from Bolivia, Brazil (Amazonas, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and São Paulo), Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, and Venezuela(Kempf 1972;Santos et al 2017; Fernández and Serna 2019).…”

“…It has been recorded from Veracruz state in Mexico, south to Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, and the Brazilian states of Acre and Bahia. This ample and somewhat disjunct distribution suggests that C. cornutus might have a continuous distribution throughout Central America and northern South America(Adams and Longino 2007;Miranda et al 2012;Vergara-Navarro and Serna 2013;Santos et al 2017).…”