Abstract
Understanding how communities respond to anthropogenic disturbance is considered a stepping-stone to support decision-making by environmental managers and restoration ecology. In endangered biodiverse regions, such as the Neotropics, ecological indicators are particularly useful, by enlighten possible diversity trends and functional shifts. Our objectives were to deepen our understanding on the soil ant assemblages/habitat relationships in the Brazilian Amazon, particularly relevant for a data-deficient and fast changing region, and evaluate if regional ant assemblages, collected within a gradient of disturbance, could fulfill the surrogate role. A sampling effort of 630 pitfall traps and litter collection were used for monitoring ant communities within the gradient of habitats considered. Sequential reductions in ant richness, abundance and simplification of assemblage compositions were detected along the disturbance gradient comprising pristine forests, secondary forests, agriculture and pastures. Additionally, indicator species identified could be used to assess the disturbance level but also to guide restoration efforts in this region. Finally, even though late secondary forests displayed diverse assemblages, old-growth/pristine forests support distinct communities, highlighting its critical contribution for the conservation of ants.
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This research was supported by European Investment Funds by FEDER/COMPETE/POCI—Operational Competitiveness and Internationalization Programme, under Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006958, National Funds by FCT—Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project UIDB/04033/2020 and INTERACT, Integrative Research in Environment, Agro-Chains and Technology, Project Norte 2020 45/2015/02. WBS thank the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Brazil through a doctorate fellowship (Finance Code 001). EP thanks Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil for the research grant (Research Productivity no. 307303/2019-5).
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da Silva, W.B., Cajaiba, R.L., Santos, M. et al. Effectiveness of ant communities to detect anthropogenic disturbance in Neotropical forest landscapes: a case study in the Brazilian Amazon. Biodivers Conserv 31, 211–226 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02329-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-021-02329-x