Urban tropical forest islets as hotspots of ants in general and invasive ants in particular.

ABSTRACT: Urbanization is a crucial driver of environmental and biodiversity change. It is suggested that urbanization favours generalist and invasive species and might harm specialists of natural and semi-natural habitats. In this study, we examined how an urbanization gradient and environmental gradients in the habitat area, habitat diversity, elevation, and proportion of built-up area influenced the abundance and richness of ants within tropical forest islet habitat in south India. We used abundance (proportional trap incidence) of overall ants, native ants, invasive ants, and Anoplolepis gracilipes-a globally notorious invasive ant of possible south Asian origin-and rarefied richness as the response variables. We found that native ant abundance was greater and A. gracilipes abundance was lesser

SUBMITTER: Rajesh TP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9283449 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature