An assessment of rehabilitation success in an African grassland using ants as bioindicators

Abstract

Many studies that evaluate rehabilitation make use of invertebrate bioindicators. Invertebrates, especially ants, make useful indicators as they are sensitive to environmental change. We compared ant assemblages in rehabilitated and control sites in the Rietvlei Nature Reserve, a protected area important for grassland conservation in South Africa. Pitfall traps were used to sample ant assemblages at six control sites and six rehabilitated sites. In addition, environmental and vegetation surveys were conducted at each site. We found that the ant assemblages differed significantly between the control and rehabilitated sites, although there was considerable overlap; the control sites supported a greater species density and higher abundance of ants than the rehabilitated sites. In total, 36 ant species were collected (control sites: 34 species; rehabilitated sites: 26 species). The environmental survey revealed that percentages of bare ground and coarse sand, as well as soil pH, differed significantly between the control and rehabilitated sites. The control and rehabilitated sites also supported significantly different plant assemblages. Three indicator ant species were identified for the control sites: Crematogaster rectinota, Crematogaster amita and Monomorium fastidium. No indicator species were identified for the rehabilitated sites. These results suggest that recovery from the previous agricultural use of the area is still incomplete and highlights the lack of research examining the success of rehabilitation in the grassland biome.Conservation implications: The present study illustrates the need for further research on rehabilitation techniques utilised in the grassland biome. This is of value as the remainder of South African grasslands are considered critically endangered.

Diversity of Ants and Termites of the Botanical Garden of the University of Lomé, Togo

“…Indeed, a huge number of invertebrate species are being used as bioindicators including beetles [25,26,27,28], butterflies [28,29,30], ants [31,32,33] as well as termites [34]. Ants (Formicidae) have been used to monitor changes in various ecosystems such as grassland [33], mountains [35], rainforest [36], tropical forest [37], arboreal plantation such as mango [38], cocoa [39], teak [40]. Beside ants, termites are also candidate as ecosystem monitoring tool [34,41,42] and in specific cases both can be quite good bioindicators.…”

Peran Ekosistem Mangrove Sebagai Habitat Populasi Tuntong Laut (Batagur borneoensis, Schlegel & Muller, 1844)

“…(Itoh, et al 2018). Peningkatan terhadap layanan ekosistem diukur dengan penilaian, indikator, metode kuantifikasi dan strategi pengelolaan dengan pendekatan berbagai konsep (Burkhard, et al 2014;Jamison, et al 2016). Peran masyarakat dalam menentukan rehabilitasi, dapat dianggap sebagai keterlibatan masyarakat dalam pengelolaan sumber daya mangrove yang lebih baik (Mukherjee, et al 2014).…”

Espaces verts comme une alternative de conservation de la biodiversité en villes : le cas des fourmis (Hyménoptère : Formicidae) dans le district d’Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire)

“…Ces derniers sont des organismes dont les exigences écologiques sont directement affectées par les variations biotiques et abiotiques intervenant dans leur milieu de vie (Ramade, 1993). Plusieurs travaux indiquent que les fourmis sont de bons indicateurs biologiques (Yeo et al, 2011;Kone et al, 2014 ;Jamison et al, 2016). Elles constituent une composante majeure de la faune du sol dans de nombreux écosystèmes et sont considérées comme ingénieurs de l'écosystème car elles peuvent influencer la disponibilité des ressources pour les organismes vivant dans leur environnement ( Del Toro et al, 2012).…”