Food Webs in the Litter: Effects of Food and Nest Addition on Ant Communities in Coffee Agroecosystems and Forest

Ants that Frequently Colonize Twigs in the Leaf Litter of Different Vegetation Habitats

“…None species was recorded in urban parks in 864 m 2 of leaf litter; in the eucalyptus plantations, four species (33.3%) were observed in 57 twigs (= 0.06 twigs/ m 2 of leaf litter); and in the native forest, 11 species (91.7%) in 217 twigs (= 0.25 twigs/m 2 of leaf litter). Other studies on ants that colonize twigs in native forest and agroecosystems (Murnen et al, 2013;Souza-Campana et al, 2017) have also shown that the less the anthropogenic influence, for the best the ant diversity.…”

“…Forel, 1908 were found both in the eucalyptus plantations and the native vegetation (Table 1). Of these, only L. neotropicum (Mann-Whitney = 1.7401; p = 0.0818) and P. sospes (Mann-Whitney = 0.0985; p = 0.9215) colonized similar-diameter twigs in different vegetation habitats (Fig 2), although the leaf litter in the native forest shelters a higher twig diversity (Murnen et al, 2013) compared to eucalyptus plantations (Pereira et al, 2007). Our study is the first to compare "common inhabitants" of twigs among different vegetation habitats in the Brazilian Atlantic domain, demonstrating that these communities are affected by habitat structure, as shown by Souza-Campana et al (2017) for other twig-colonizing ant species.…”

The presence of aggressive ants is associated with fewer insect visits to and altered microbe communities in coffee flowers

“…But the differences described here warrant further exploration. In addition, we only assessed the effects of Azteca on floral visitation in the high-shade farm, but it is unlikely that ant behavior varies significantly among farms given other documented impacts of Azteca ants in the two farms (Moorhead, Philpott, & Bichier 2010;Murnen, Gonthier, & Philpott 2013). These results imply that aggressive ants are associated with pronounced differences in microbial species composition, and that the biotic context mediates the strength and direction of this effect on microbial communities.…”

Relations between the design and management of Senegalese orchards and ant diversity and community composition

“…Tadu et al (2014) in Cameroon identified 52, 53 and 61 species in three cocoa agroecosystems. Murnen et al (2013) found 39 and 65 species from respectively low-shaded and high-shaded coffee in two American agroecosystems (Mexico).…”