Levantamento de Formigas de Serapilheira, durante o Pico do Período Seco, na Estação Científica Ferreira Penna, Caxiuanã, Melgaço, ParL

Abstract

Ants form one of the most important groups of insects in terms of biomass, species diversity and indicators of ecological impacts in tropical forests. Work carried out in this type of forest has shown that ants represent more than 60% of the arthropod fauna of these environments. Regarding the number of species, the ant fauna of South America is considered the richest in the world, with a predominance of the subfamilies Myrmicinae, Ponerinae and Dolichoderinae. This work aims to know the diversity, richness and abundance of burrowing ants in the ECFPn and to verify if there is similarity in the composition of ant communities in six areas of primary forest. The ants were collected using the rnini- Winkler extractor technique, where the burlap was left for 48 hours. The data obtained after identification were grouped in Microsoft Excel program and analyzed using BioDiversity Pro version Beta1. The total number of individuals found was 9,475 in a frequency of 1,386, belonging to eight subfamilies and 43 genera; the subfamily Myrmicinae was the most representative with 7,905 individuals (1041 occurrences) and 24 genera, and the least representative was Proceratiinae, with only one genus (10 individuals and 4 occurrences). The most abundant genera were Pheidole (196), Solenopsis (175), Crematogaster (168), Pyramica (125), Strumigenys (100). The highest subfamily richness occurred in areas III and VI (=8), while the lowest was in area I (=6). The highest genera richness occurred in area VI (=31) and the lowest in area IV (=25). The highest similarity in community composition at the genus level occurred between areas II and IV (=93.3) and the lowest was between areas I and III (=60.3). These data may help in studies of ant diversity, abundance and richness in the Amazon.