Habitat preferences of Strumigenys ants in western Japan (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

The ant tribe Dacetini contains more than 800 species (Bolton et al. 2006). Many dacetine ants are specialized predators on soil inhabiting arthropods such as Collembola, Acarina, and to some extent also Diplura (Brown and Wilson 1959; Masuko 1984, 2009ab; Wilson 1953). Due to their peculiar morphological characteristics related to this specialized predation, dacetine ants have attracted the interest of many myrmecologists, who have described a diversity of hunting behaviors in these ants (e.g. Brown and Wilson 1959; Dejean 1986, 1988; Wilson 1953; Masuko1984, 2009ab). Moreover, some species are known as tramp species, e.g. Strumigenys emmae (Emery, 1890), Strumigenys membranifera Emery, 1869, and Strumigenys rogeri Emery, 1890 (Brown 1949, 1954; Brown and Wilson, 1959). To date, habitat preferences of dacetine ants have been poorly reported and quantitative results remain scarce except for some ant community studies (e.g. Graham et al. 2004). In this tribe, Strumigenys and Pyramica are the most species-rich genera (Bolton 2000, Bolton et al. 2006). However, the classification of the tribe Dacetini is highly debated. Baroni Urbani and de Andrade (2007) treated Pyramica as synonym of Strumigenys, and phylogenetic analysis based on molecular data show that neither genus is monophyletic (Moreau and Bell 2013). Therefore we follow Baroni Urbani and de Andrade (2007), SHORT COMMUNICATIONS