Ant and termite diversity in Indonesian oil palm plantation: Investigating the effect of natural habitat existence

Abstract

Abstract. Rizali A, Karindah S, Windari A, Rahardjo BT, Nurindah, Sahari B. 2020. Ant and termite diversity in Indonesian oil palm plantation: Investigating the effect of natural habitat existence. Biodiversitas 21: 1326-1331. Natural habitat existence in oil palm plantation has high conservation value and plays an important role in maintaining biodiversity. However, different taxa may have different responses to the presence of natural habitats. This research was aimed to investigate the effect of natural habitat existence on ant and termite diversity in oil palm plantation. The field research was conducted in oil palm plantation located in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. Twelve plots of oil palm plantation with different habitat characteristics were selected. Ants and termites were sampled using hand collection in six subplots for each plot. In total, 38 species of ants and 9 species of termites were collected from all research areas. The results showed that the area of natural habitats and the distance of oil palm field to natural habitats affected the diversity of termites in the oil palm plantation, but ant diversity did not show to be affected by the same conditions. Based on the generalized linear model, the area of natural habitats in the oil palm plantation had a negative relationship with the diversity of termites. In conclusion, the termite species community is more affected by natural habitats than ants in oil palm plantation.

Diversity and species composition of ants at coffee agroforestry systems in East Java, Indonesia: Effect of habitat condition and landscape composition

“…In addition, natural habitats have no effect on ants in the coffee agroforestry system. The previous study also found the same pattern that area and patch number of agricultural lands are more affected by insect diversity than natural habitats (e.g., Ulina et al 2019;Rizali et al 2020).…”

“…Ants are very sensitive to environmental change. Agriculture intensification, human disturbance, and land conversion are known to affect ant diversity (Solar et al 2016;Rizali et al 2020;Santos et al 2021). Because of their sensitive and rapid responses, ants can become good indicators of change in the environment (Tiede et al 2017).…”

Ant diversity inhabited oil palm plantations in a peatland in Sumatra, Indonesia

“…The results of research on peat-lands with palm stands from a young age to old reported that 15 ant species were found (Darmi et al 2015). Rizali et al (2020) found 7 to 22 ant species in several oil palm plantation lands adjacent to natural habitats. According to Yulminarti et al (2012) found 53 species from 316 individuals in peat swamp forest, while the one-year-old palm oil plantation found 24 species from 237 individuals.…”

“…Several studies of ant communities in peatland planted with oil palm and adjacent natural habitat have been reported (Lucey et al 2014;Darmi et al 2015;Wang and Foster 2015;Rizali et al 2020). Previous research conducted by Darmi et al (2015) compared the differences of ant communities in the oil palm stands with different ages.…”