Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Size does matter – effects of tropical rainforest fragmentation on the leaf litter ant community in Sabah, Malaysia

  • Published:
Biodiversity & Conservation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Primary tropical lowland rainforest in Sabah, Malaysia, has been largely reduced to small to medium-sized, often isolated, forest islands surrounded by a highly altered agricultural landscape. The biodiversity patterns of leaf litter ant communities were monitored in two forest fragments of differing size as well as in a contiguous forest over the course of two years. Species number and diversity in the forest isolates was significantly lower, reaching only 47.5% of the species number collected in the contiguous forest. Species density was also lower, which had led to a thinning of the ant community in the fragments. Community composition was substantially altered in the forest remnants, and an increase of tramp species with smaller fragment size was detected. These results were unexpected and alarming, as the medium-sized forest is with its 42.9 km2 a comparatively large primary forest fragment for Sabah.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adis J., Ribeiro E.F., de Morais J.W. and Cavalcante E.T.S. 1989. Vatertical distribution and abundance of arthropods from white sand soil of a Neotropical Campinarana Forest during the dry season. Studies in Neotropical Fauna and Environment 24: 201–211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Agosti D., Majer J.D., Alonso L.E. and Schultz T.R. 2000. Ants – Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Biological Diversity Handbook Series. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alonso L.E. 2000. Ants as indicators of diversity. In: Agosti D., Majer J.D., Alonso L.E. and Schultz T.R. (eds), Ants – Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Biological Diversity Handbook Series. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, pp. 80–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arango-Velez N. and Kattan G.H. 1997. Effects of forest fragmentation on experimental nest predation in Andean cloud forest. Biological Conservation 81: 137–143.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bestelmayer B.T., Agosti D., Alonso L.E., Brandao C.R.F., Brown.L., Delabie J.H.C. et al. 2000. Field techniques for the study of ground-dwelling ants: an overview, description and evaluation. In: Agost D., Majer J.D., Alonso L.E. and Schultz T.R. (eds), Ants – Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Biological Diversity Handbook Series. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, pp. 122–144.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bickel T. 2001. Auswirkungen von Habitatfragmentation und Isolation auf die genetische Diversität von Ameisen-populationen der Laubstreu in Tieflandregenwäldern Sabahs, Borneo, Master Thesis, Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Germany.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bierregaard R.O., Lovejoy T.E., Kapos V., Augusto dos Santos A. and Hutchings R.W. 1992. The biological dynamics of tropical rainforest fragments. A prospective comparison of fragments and continuous forest. Bioscience 42: 859–866.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bolton B. 1994. Identification Guide to the Ant Genera of theWorld. Harvard University Press, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown K.S. and Hutchings R.W. 1997. Disturbance, fragmentation and the dynamics of diversity in Amazonian forest butterflies. In: Laurance W.F. and Bierregaard R.O. (eds), Tropical Forest Remnants. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 91–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brühl C.A. 2001. Leaf litter ant communities in tropical lowland rainforests in Sabah, Malaysia: effects of forest disturbance and fragmentation, Julius-Maximilians-Universität, Würzburg, Germany.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brühl C.A., Gunsalam G. and Linsenmair K.E. 1998. Stratification of ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in a primary rain forest in Sabah, Borneo. Journal of Tropical Ecology 14: 285–297.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler B.J. and Chazdon R.L. 1998. Species richness, spatial variation and abundance of the soil seed bank of a secondary tropical rainforest. Biotropica 30: 214–222.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll C.R. and Janzen D.H. 1973. Ecology of foraging by ants. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4: 231–257.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carvalho K.S. and Vasconcelos H.L. 1999. Forest fragmentation in central Amazonia and its effects on litter-dwelling ants. Biological Conservation 91: 151–157.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chappell N. 2000. Rainfall. The Danum Valley Rainforest Research and Training Programme – Annual Report 1999. Innoprise, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, p. 23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chazdon R.L. 1994. The primary importance of secondary forests in the tropics. Tropinet 5: 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chey V.K., Holloway J.D. and Speight M.R. 1997. Diversity of moths in forest plantations and natural forests in Sabah. Bulletin of Entomological Research 87: 371–385.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chiarello A.G. 2000. Density and population size of mammals in remnants of Brazilian atlantic forest. Conservation Biology 14: 1649–1657.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chung A.Y.C., Eggleton P., Speight M.R., Hammond P.M. and Chey V.K. 2000. The diversity of beetle assemblages in different habitat types in Sabah, Malaysia. Bulletin of Entomological Research 90: 475–496.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coddington J.A., Young L.H. and Coyle F.A. 1996. Estimating spider richness in a southern Appalachian cove hardwood forest. Journal of Arachnology 24: 111–128.

    Google Scholar 

  • Colwell R.K. 1997. EstimateS: Statistical estimation of species richness and shared species from samples. Version 5. Available at: http://viceroy.eeb.uconn.edu/estimates.

  • Colwell R.K. and Coddington J.A. 1994. Estimating terrestrial biodiversity through extrapolation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 345: 101–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper D.S. and Francis C.M. 1998. Nest predation in a Malaysian lowland rainforest. Biological Conservation 85: 199–202.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dauber J. and Wolters V. 2000. Microbial activity and functional diversity in the mounds of three different ant species. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 32: 93–99.

    Google Scholar 

  • Debinski D.M. and Holt R.D. 2000. A survey and overview of habitat fragmentation experiments. Conservation Biology 14: 342–355.

    Google Scholar 

  • Didham R.K. 1996. Insects in fragmented forests: a functional approach. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 11: 255–260.

    Google Scholar 

  • Didham R.K. 1997. The influence of edge effects and forest fragmentation on leaf litter invertebrates in Central Amazonia. In: Laurance W.F. and Bierregaard R.O. (eds), Tropical Forest Remnants. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 55–70.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dobyns J.R. 1997. Effects of sampling intensity on the collection of spider (Araneae) species and the estimation of species richness. Environmental Ecology 26: 150–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Eguchi K. 2001. A revision of the Bornean species of the ant genus Pheidole (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Myrmicinae). Tropics, Monograph Series 2: 1–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faith D.P., Minchin P.R. and Belbin L. 1987. Compositional dissimilarity as a robust measure of ecological distance. Vegetatio 69: 57–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Folgarait P.J. 1998. Ant biodiversity and its relationship to ecosystem functioning: a review. Biodiversity and Conservation 7: 1221–1224.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox J.E.D. 1969. Sepilok Forest Reserve and the international biological programme. Malaysian Forester 32: 414–422.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox J.E.D. 1973. A Handbook to Kabili – Sepilok Forest Reserve. Sabah Forestry Department, Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franks N.R. and Fletcher C.R. 1983. Spatial patterns in army ant foraging and migration: Eciton burchelli on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Behaviour Ecology and Sociobiology 12: 261–270.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gascon C. 1998. Faunal responses to fragmentation and the matrix habitat. Biotropica 30: 214–216.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunadi B. and Verhoef H.A. 1993. The flow of nutrients in a Pinus merkusii forest plantation in Central Java; the contribution of soil animals. European Journal of Soil Biology 29: 133–139.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henderson P.A. and Seaby R.M.H. 1998. Species Diversity and Richness, version 2.3. Pisces Conservation Ltd., Lymington, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hölldobler B. and Wilson E.O. 1990. The Ants. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jullien M. and Thiollay J.M. 1996. Effects of rainforest disturbance and fragmentation: comparative changes of the raptor community along natural and human-made gradients in French Guyana. Journal of Biogeography 23: 7–25.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaspari M. 1993. Body size and microclimate use in Neotropical granivorous ants. Oecologia 96: 500–507.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kitching R. 2000. Biodiversity, hotspots and deviance. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15: 484–485.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laidlaw R.K. 1996. A comparison between populations of primates, squirrels, tree shrews and other mammals inhabiting virgin, logged, fragmented and plantation forests in Malaysia. In: Lee S.S., May D.Y., Gauld I.D. and Bishop J. (eds), Conservation, Management and Development of Forest Resources. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, pp. 141–159.

  • Laidlaw R.K. 2000. Effects of habitat disturbance and protected areas on mammals of Peninsular Malaysia. Conservation Biology 14: 1639–1648.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lattke J.E. 2000. Specimen processing: building and curating an ant collection. In: Agosti D., Majer J.D., Alonso L.E. and Schultz T.R. (eds), Ants – Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Biological Diversity Handbook Series. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, pp. 155–171.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laurance W.F. and Bierregaard R.O. 1996. Fragmented tropical forests. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 77: 34–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lawton J.H., Bignell D.E., Bolton B., Blowmers G.F., Eggleton P.M., Hammond M. et al. 1998. Biodiversity inventories, indicator taxa and effects of habitat modification in tropical rainforest. Nature 391: 72–76.

    Google Scholar 

  • Legendre P. and Legendre L. 1998. Numerical Ecology. 2nd English edn. Elsevier, Amsterdam.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linsenmair K.E. 1997. Biodiversity and sustainable management of tropical forests. Natural Resources and Development 45/46: 13–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Longino J.T. 2000. What to do with the data? In: Agosti D., Majer J.D., Alonso L.E. and Schultz T.R. (eds), Ants – Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Biological Diversity Handbook Series. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, pp. 186–203.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacArthur R.H. and Wilson E.O. 1967. The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacKinnon K., Hatta G., Halim H. and Mangalik A. 1996. The Ecology of Kalimantan – Indonesian Borneo. Periplus Editions, Singapore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Majer J.D., Day J.E., Kabay E.D. and Perriman W.S. 1984. Recolonisation by ants in bauxite mines rehabilitated by a number of different methods. Journal of Applied Ecology 21: 355–375.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marsh C.W. and Greer A.G. 1992. Forest land-use in Sabah, Malaysia: an introduction to Danum Valley. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 335: 331–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Minchin P.R. 1987. An evaluation of the relative robustness of techniques for ecological ordination. Vegetatio 69: 89–107.

    Google Scholar 

  • Myers N. 1988. Threatened biotas: Hot spots in tropical forests. The Environmentalist 8: 187–208.

    Google Scholar 

  • Newbery D.M., Campbell E.J.F., Lee Y.F., Ridsdale C.E. and Still M.J. 1992. Primary lowland dipterocarp forest at Danum Valley, Sabah, Malaysia: structure, relative abundance, and family composition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 335: 341–356.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peterson A.T. and Slade N.A. 1998. Extrapolating inventory results into biodiversity estimates and the importance of stopping rules. Diversity and Distributions 4: 95–105.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfeifer D., Bäumer H.P., Dekker R. and Schleier U. 1998. Statistical tools for monitoring benthic communities. Hamburger Beiträge zur Modellierung 7: 1–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rennolls K. and Laumonier Y. 2000. Species diversity structure analysis at two sites in the tropical rain forest of Sumatra. Journal of Tropical Ecology 16: 253–270.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schultz T.R. and McGlynn T.P. 2000. The interactions of ants with other organisms. In: Agosti D., Majer J.D., Alonso L.E. and Schultz T.R. (eds), Ants – Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Biological Diversity Handbook Series. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, pp. 35–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seidler R. and Bawa K.S. 2001. Logged forests. In: Levin S.A. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Biodiversity Vol. 3. Academic Press, San Diego, California, pp. 747–760.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shahabuddin G. and Terborgh J.W. 1999. Frugivorous butterflies in Venezuelan forest fragments: abundance, diversity and the effects of isolation. Journal of Tropical Ecology 15: 703–722.

    Google Scholar 

  • Skole D. and Tucker C. 1993. Tropical deforestation and habitat fragmentation in the Amazon: satellite data from 1978 to 1988. Science 260: 1905–1910.

    Google Scholar 

  • Soberon J.M. and Llorente J.B. 1993. The use of species accumulation functions for the prediction of species richness. Conservation Biology 7: 480–488.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sokal R.R. and Rohlf F.J. 1981. Biometry. Freeman and Co., New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • StatSoft 2000. STATISTICA 5.5 for Windows. StatSoft, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stouffer P.C. and Bierregaard R.O. 1995. Use of Amazonian forest fragments by understory insectivorous birds. Ecology 76: 2429–2445.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomas C.D. 2000. Dispersal and extinction in fragmented landscapes. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 267: 139–145.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner I.M. and Corlett R.T. 1996. The conservation value of small, isolated fragments of lowland tropical rainforest. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 11: 330–333.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson E.O. 1992. The Diversity of Life. W.W. Norton and Company, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson E.O. 2000. Foreword. In: Agosti D., Majer J.D., Alonso L.E. and Schultz T.R. (eds), Ants – Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Biological Diversity Handbook Series. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, p. XV.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology, Theodor-Boveri-Institut, Biocenter, Am Hubland, Würzburg, D-97074, German

    Carsten A. Brühl, Thomas Eltz & K. Eduard Linsenmair

Authors
  1. Carsten A. Brühl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Thomas Eltz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. K. Eduard Linsenmair
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carsten A. Brühl.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Brühl, C.A., Eltz, T. & Linsenmair, K.E. Size does matter – effects of tropical rainforest fragmentation on the leaf litter ant community in Sabah, Malaysia. Biodiversity and Conservation 12, 1371–1389 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023621609102

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023621609102

Search

Navigation