Vegetation structure of plantain-based agrosystems determines numerical dominance in community of ground-dwelling ants.

ABSTRACT: In tropics, ants can represent an important part of animal biomass and are known to be involved in ecosystem services, such as pest regulation. Understanding the mechanisms underlying the structuring of local ant communities is therefore important in agroecology. In the humid tropics of Africa, plantains are cropped in association with many other annual and perennial crops. Such agrosystems differ greatly in vegetation diversity and structure and are well-suited for studying how habitat-related factors affect the ant community. We analysed abundance data for the six numerically dominant ant taxa in 500 subplots located in 20 diversified, plantain-based fields. We found that the density of crops with foliage at intermediate and high canopy strata determined the numerical dominance of specie

SUBMITTER: Dassou AG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5689021 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature