The Little Fire ant<i>Wasmannia auropunctata</i>(Roger) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) as a Diversity Indicator of Ants in Tropical Dry Forest Fragments of Colombia

Armbrecht, Inge; Ulloa-Chacón, Patricia

doi:10.1603/0046-225x-32.3.542

Cited by 48 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…The inverse correlation between species richness and the abundance of W. auropunctata reinforces the idea that the little fire ant can be used as an indicator of low diversity in ant assemblages [34]. This species is 10 times more abundant toward the South of the region sampled, where the process of fragmentation has been more aggressive [16].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

“…This method is useful for estimating the composition and richness of the ant fauna that forage actively on the ground [39] and has been widely used in dry forests [30,31,34]. The baits, previously evaluated by Achury et al [33], consisted of a piece (4 × 4 cm) of white bond paper, on which was placed an average of 9 g (±1.7) of tuna fish conserved in oil.…”

Section: Sampling Of Antsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, the richest forests have a greater number of rare species [31], and the richness and relative frequency of some groups (e.g., legionary or army ants) are correlated positively with the area [32]. Although the actual composition of ant species varies significantly among sampling sites [33], the little fire ant (Wasmannia auropunctata R.) is numerically dominant; thus, it has been proposed as an indicator of low diversity in the dry forest [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of the Heterogeneity of the Landscape and the Abundance ofWasmannia auropunctataon Ground Ant Assemblages in a Colombian Tropical Dry Forest

Achury

Ulloa

Arcila

2012

Psyche: A Journal of Entomology

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To evaluate the response of the ant assemblages to different management practices in the tropical dry forests of southwestern Colombia, 10 sites that conserve forest fragments surrounded by pastures and sugarcane crops were sampled. Tuna-fish baits placed on the ground in the three habitats captured 100 ant species (41 genera). The greatest number of species was found in the forests in contrast with a significant loss of richness and diversity in the productive habitats, the pastures being richer than the cane fields. Species richness was negatively correlated with the abundance of the little fire ant Wasmannia auropunctata. Ant species composition was related to soil temperature and percent ground cover, as well as being partially determined by location and the abundance of W. auropunctata. The forests had a significantly different species composition from the other two habitats, but there were no consistent differences between the pastures and the cane fields.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Sampling Of Antsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of the Heterogeneity of the Landscape and the Abundance ofWasmannia auropunctataon Ground Ant Assemblages in a Colombian Tropical Dry Forest

Achury

Ulloa

Arcila

2012

Psyche: A Journal of Entomology

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“…In Africa, it was first reported in Gabon (Santschi, 1914;Wetterer et al, 1999;Wetterer and Porter, 2003;Walsh et al, 2004;Walker, 2006;Ndoutoume and Mikissa, 2007), where it has invaded both humandisturbed and natural forest environments, and later in Cameroon in cocoa plantations along the Kribi-Ebolowa road (de Miré, 1969). In its native range, W. auropunctata is regarded as a dominant species in disturbed areas, while it is common but non-dominant in undisturbed areas such as the primary forest (Majer and Delabie, 1999;Armbrecht and Ulloa-Chacon, 2003;Orivel et al, 2009). Further demographic and reproductive differences have recently been identified between the two types of native populations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Current distribution and population dynamics of the little fire ant supercolony in Cameroon

Tindo¹,

Massé²,

Kenné³

et al. 2011

Insect. Soc.

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The little fire ant, Wasmannia auropunctata, is native to Central America, but has been introduced into many parts of the world. We examined the current distribution of W. auropunctata in Cameroon, tested for aggression between workers from different parts of the country, and examined the genotypes of workers, queens, and males to evaluate the mating system. We found W. auropunctata at 36 sites in three provinces (Centre, East, and South). We found W. auropunctata only in humandisturbed habitats. Its spread appears to be primarily human mediated. Aggressive behaviour was almost non-existent between workers from different sites, indicating that there is only one supercolony in Cameroon. Our genetic analysis found that only one male/female pair of clones was introduced into Cameroon, probably from Gabon. No new male clonal lineage was identified, whereas new sexually derived female clonal lineages were noted. Apart from the genotype of the founding queen, which was well distributed but generally not dominant, a new clonal queen genotype emerged and was both omnipresent and dominant at most sites. These results may be useful in the development of management strategies.

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“…La especie más abundante fue W. auropunctata, quien junto a L. neotropicum constituyeron poco más del 20% de los registros de este estudio, ambas especies son consideradas generalistas y a menudo se les asocia con problemas, entre otros, W. auropunctata se ha reportado como indicadora de baja diversidad (Armbrecht & Ulloa-Chacón, 2003), y esta especie junto a L. neotropicum, puede tener interacciones mutualistas con hemípteros de la familia Pseudococcidae, problemáticos para varios sistemas agrícolas (Mera Velasco, Gallego Ropero, & Armbrecht, 2010). Por otro lado, entre las 31 especies consideradas raras dentro de este estudio (especies con dos o menos registros), 17 fueron encontradas exclusivamente en parches de vegetación natural.…”

Section: Discussionunclassified

Gremios y diversidad de hormigas (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) en tres usos del suelo de un paisaje cafetero del Cauca-Colombia.

Arenas-Clavijo

Armbrecht

2017

RBT

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Guilds and diversity of ants in three land uses from a coffee landscape at Cauca -Colombia. In the last 50 years, Colombian coffee production has undergone a great transformation from traditional plantations grown below the forest's shade, to vast extensions of coffee plantations consisting of free exposition to sun. These systems reduce native biodiversity and its associated ecosystem services. Simultaneously, shaded coffee plantations operate as potential shelter of such biodiversity, favoring its dispersal in the landscape, because they offer high-quality habitat for the movement of wild organisms through natural vegetation relicts. Therefore, it is important to document its biological value. In Colombia, Cauca department is the fourth coffee producer and although its cultures were mainly based on the model of using trees' shade on coffee shrubs, in last 10 years, sun coffee plantations have doubled their extension in this department and have almost equated the shaded coffee extension. Thus, it is necessary to document if these land use changes at landscape scale may derivate in consequences for the wild biota dwelling these productive systems. Given the above considerations, and in order to test for the biological importance of coffee plantations, the present study compares the effect of three land uses (sun coffee, shaded coffee and natural vegetation patches; eight of each one) in terms of ants' species richness and the abundance of their trophic guilds at Caldono municipality, between August 2015 and January 2016. Captures were carried out with pitfall traps, mini-Winkler sacs and direct capture. We found that ants' richness was higher in natural vegetation patches, followed by shaded coffee plantations and sun coffee plantations, in these last ones, the omnivore-generalist ants were more abundant, and ground-foraging arboreal ants were less abundant. We found that shaded coffee plantations, despite belonging to a transformed land use, have greater similarity with some natural vegetation patches. Using only ants from the lowest stratum (soil and understory), our findings confirm that shaded coffee plantations maintain an important part of the ant diversity of the locality, while sun coffee plantations offer less habitat quality to it. El café (Coffea arabica L. Rubiaceae) es una especie vegetal de gran importancia comercial en Colombia, cuya producción ubica este país como el tercero a nivel mundial, después de Brasil y Vietnam (ICO, 2017). Con el paso de los años, las variedades de los cafetos sembrados en Colombia -que en condiciones naturales de su sitio originario en África, crecen en el estrato bajo de bosques-, fueron progresivamente reemplazadas por variedades desarrolladas para resistir el pleno sol, sembradas a cielo abierto con arbustos bajos, en densidades de hasta 10 000 por hectárea, y ocasionalmente acompañadas por una o dos especies vegetales, también productivas (Borrero, 1986;Armbrecht, 2016). Esta forma de producción proviene de una concepción de agricultura industrial, que dep...

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The Little Fire antWasmannia auropunctata(Roger) (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) as a Diversity Indicator of Ants in Tropical Dry Forest Fragments of Colombia

Cited by 48 publications

References 31 publications

Effects of the Heterogeneity of the Landscape and the Abundance ofWasmannia auropunctataon Ground Ant Assemblages in a Colombian Tropical Dry Forest

Effects of the Heterogeneity of the Landscape and the Abundance ofWasmannia auropunctataon Ground Ant Assemblages in a Colombian Tropical Dry Forest

Current distribution and population dynamics of the little fire ant supercolony in Cameroon

Gremios y diversidad de hormigas (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) en tres usos del suelo de un paisaje cafetero del Cauca-Colombia.

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