Influence of Urban Landscape on Ants and Spiders Richness and Composition in Forests

Melo, T S; Moreira, E F; Lopes, M V A; Andrade, A R S; Brescovit, A D; Peres, M C L; Delabie, J H C

doi:10.1007/s13744-020-00824-4

Ecology, Behavior and Bionomics
Published: 26 January 2021

Influence of Urban Landscape on Ants and Spiders Richness and Composition in Forests

Neotropical Entomology volume 50, pages 32–45 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

As large amounts of natural environments are lost due to urbanization, the role of remnant native vegetation in the preservation of biodiversity has become even more significant. Remnant native forest patches are essential refugia for flora and fauna and are crucial for the maintenance of ecosystem processes in urbanized landscapes. We evaluated the influence of landscape structure on ants and spiders associated with Atlantic Forest remnants in urban landscapes. We sampled 14 forest areas in the Metropolitan Region of Salvador and tested the effect of the landscapes’ proportion of forest cover, mean landscape isolation, and mean landscape shape complexity on the taxonomic and functional richness and the community composition of both groups. The species collected were classified into functional groups based on behavioral attributes and environmental preferences. Overall, there were strong adverse effects of forest loss, decreased connectivity, and an increase in edge effects associated with the mean shape complexity of the forest remnants. However, the spiders responded to all three landscape structure characteristics whereas the ants only responded to the landscape mean shape complexity. Our findings indicate that the maintenance of urban forest habitats is essential for the conservation of biodiversity in the Metropolitan Region of Salvador and the preservation of ecological functions performed by species within the forest areas.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Ministério do Meio Ambiente – MMA (no. 33828-1 SISBIO) and Instituto do Meio Ambiente e Recursos Hídricos – INEMA (no. 15-2012 DIRUC) for the grant permits. TSM thanks CAPES for the scholarship provided. MCLP is supported by Programa de Regime de Tempo Contínuo at the Universidade Católica do Salvador. ADB and JHCD acknowledge their grants from CNPq (grants 303903/2019-8 and 304629/2018-9, respectively).

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Affiliations

Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia, Univ Federal da Bahia, Salvador, BA, Brasil
T S Melo, E F Moreira, A R S Andrade & J H C Delabie
Centro de Ecologia e Conservação Animal, Univ Católica do Salvador, Salvador, BA, Brasil
T S Melo, M V A Lopes, A R S Andrade & M C L Peres
National Institute of Science and Technology in Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Studies in Ecology and Evolution, Salvador, BA, Brasil
E F Moreira
Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia e Evolução, Univ Estadual de Feira de Santana, Feira de Santana, BA, Brasil
M V A Lopes
Lab de Coleções Zoológicas, Instituto Butantan, Sao Paulo, SP, Brasil
A D Brescovit
Lab de Mirmecologia, Convênio UESC/CEPLAC, CEPEC-CEPLAC, Itabuna, Itabuna, Bahia, Brasil
J H C Delabie

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T S Melo
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E F Moreira
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M V A Lopes
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A R S Andrade
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A D Brescovit
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M C L Peres
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J H C Delabie
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Contributions

TS Melo, MCL Peres, JHC Delabie, and EF Moreira contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by TS Melo, JHC Delabie, and AD Brescovit. Statistical analysis was performed by EF Moreira. The first draft of the manuscript was written by EF Moreira, TS Melo, ARS Andrade, and MVA Lopes. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to T S Melo.

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Melo, T.S., Moreira, E.F., Lopes, M.V.A. et al. Influence of Urban Landscape on Ants and Spiders Richness and Composition in Forests. Neotrop Entomol 50, 32–45 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13744-020-00824-4

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Received: 08 April 2020
Accepted: 29 October 2020
Published: 26 January 2021
Issue Date: February 2021
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13744-020-00824-4

Keywords

Urbanization gradient
urban forests
functional diversity
ecological functions
configurational heterogeneity
compositional heterogeneity
habitat loss
habitat fragmentation