1 / 18

Ecology of ants

Ecology of ants. Ant Mosaics and Dominance. Ants` role in ecosystems. 40-60% of all animal biomass predation & scavenging. Ants` role in ecosystems. niche diversification structuring the invertebrate community. Community ecology of ants.

suki
Download Presentation

Ecology of ants

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Ecology of ants Ant Mosaics and Dominance

  2. Ants` role in ecosystems • 40-60% of all animal biomass • predation & scavenging

  3. Ants` role in ecosystems • niche diversification • structuring the invertebrate community

  4. Community ecology of ants • convenient model organisms • modular, sessile organisms • parallel with plants

  5. Ant Functional Groups • Andersen 1986 • parallel to Grime`s classification

  6. Dominant Dolichoderinae Subordinate Camponotini Generalized Myrmicinae

  7. Ant Mosaics • groups of particular co-occurring ant species • specific functional groups • positive & negative associations

  8. Nigeria /Taylor 1975/ negative associations positive associations

  9. abundance

  10. Ant Dominance • space and food resources monopolization • different types of dominance: 1. Ecological 2. Behavioural 3. Numerical

  11. Ant Dominance • cca. 150 of 12 000 species referred as dominant Dolichoderinae Formicinae Myrmicinae

  12. Ant Dominance • trophobiosis • arboreal ants • nitrogen gained from lower trophic levels

  13. Ant Dominance PCA, 53% ax1+ax2

  14. Cluster analysis Ward`s method Euclidean distances • 4 groups of dominant ants distinguished

  15. Phylogeny vs Environment 0,329 Phylogeny 0,166 Environment 0,043 0,053

More Related