Vegetation structure of plantain - based agrosystems determines numerical 1 dominance in community of ground - dwelling ants 2 3 4
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چکیده
23 In tropics, ants can represent an important part of animal biomass and are known to be 24 involved in ecosystem services, such as pest regulation. Understanding the mechanisms 25 underlying the structuring of local ant communities is therefore important in agroecology. In 26 the humid tropics of Africa, plantains are cropped in association with many other annual and 27 perennial crops. Such agrosystems differ greatly in vegetation diversity and structure and are 28 well-suited for studying how habitat-related factors affect the ant community. We analysed 29 abundance data for the six numerically dominant ant taxa in 500 subplots located in 20 30 diversified, plantain-based fields. We found that the density of crops with foliage at 31 intermediate and high canopy strata determined the numerical dominance of species. We 32 found no relationship between the numerical dominance of each ant taxon with the crop 33 diversity. Our results indicate that the manipulation of the densities of crops with leaves in the 34 intermediate and high strata may help maintain the coexistence of ant species by providing 35 different habitat patches. Further research in such agrosystems should be performed to assess 36 if the effect of vegetation structure on ant abundance could result in efficient pest regulation. 37
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Vegetation structure of plantain-based agrosystems determines numerical dominance in community of ground-dwelling ants (#17973)
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Vegetation structure of plantain-based agrosystems determines numerical dominance in community of ground-dwelling ants
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 dif...
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