The assembly and importance of a novel ecosystem: The ant community of coffee farms in Puerto Rico.

ABSTRACT: Agricultural ecosystems are by their very nature novel and by definition the more general biodiversity associated with them must likewise constitute a novel community. Here, we examine the community of arboreally foraging ants in the coffee agroecosystem of Puerto Rico. We surveyed 20 coffee plants in 25 farms three times in a period of one year. We also conducted a more spatially explicit sampling in two of the farms and conducted a species interaction study between the two most abundant species, Wasmannia auropunctata and Solenopsis invicta, in the laboratory. We find that the majority of the most common species are well-known invasive ants and that there is a highly variable pattern of dominance that varies considerably over the main coffee producing region of Puerto Rico,

SUBMITTER: Perfecto I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7713940 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature