Diversity of Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) From Undisturbed And Disturbed Habitats of Great Indian Bustard Wildlife Sanctuary, (M. S.), India

N.B. Patkar; R.J. Chavan

Volume : III, Issue : XII, December - 2014

Diversity of Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) From Undisturbed And Disturbed Habitats of Great Indian Bustard Wildlife Sanctuary, (M. S.), India

N. B. Patkar, R. J. Chavan

Abstract :

The present communication deals with the study of ant diversity in undisturbed and disturbed habitats of Great Indian Bustard Wildlife Sanctuary located in Maharashtra state, India. Ants are good indicators of disturbance, because they show quick response to environmental changes. Ants were collected from two different habitats with varying disturbance levels with the help of pitfall traps, scented traps and hand collection methods. From undisturbed and disturbed forest sites total 19 and 16 ant species were collected respectively. Among the subfamilies reported from study area Myrmicinae were dominant with 7 species (35 %), followed by Formicinae with 6 species (30 %), Pseudomyrmecinae with 3 species (15 %), Ponerinae with 2 species (10 %) and lastly Dolichoderinae and Dorylinae with one species (5 %) each. Ant species Anochetus graffei, Meranoplus bicolor and Polyrhachis tibialis were found to be absent from disturbed sites whereas, Leptogenys chinesis were not reported from undisturbed forest site. Shannon-Wiener diversity index value (H�) for undisturbed forest site (2.76) was slightly higher than that of disturbed forest site (2.46). Ant abundance and composition were significantly different from undisturbed and disturbed forest sites.