Composição, riqueza e raridade de espécies de formigas (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) em povoamentos de eucaliptos e mata nativa na Reserva Biológica União/IBAMA, RJ

Abstract

Ants are highly abundant, have a great functional importance and are easily to collect and sensitive to environmental characteristcs. They have been focus on many ecological studies, from basic aspects of community structure to the applications in environmental monitoring programs.This work aimed to compare the composition, richness and rarity of ant species between native forest and eucalyptus plantations in the Atlantic Forest of Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. Four sampling programs were used in this study: pitfall traps, handcollection with sardine or honey baits in the litter, hand-collection with sardine baits on the understore and hand-collection of twig-nesting ants. One hundred and fourteen ant species were collected in Reserva Biologica União. Total richness for native forest and eucalyptus plantations were, respectively, 74 and 73 ant species. Ant species richness in the litter samples was higher in native forest than in eucalyptus plantations whereas on the plant foliage there were more ant species in the understore of eucalyptus plantations than in native forest. Wasmannia auropunctata an opportunist and one of the major invasive species worldwide was far more frequent in eucalypt plantation samples than in native forest. In general we can predict that further samples in the two habitats would produce more ant species in the native forest than in eucalypt plantations due to the higher rarity level of ant species in the samples from native forest than in the eucalytp plantation.