干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Biotic and abiotic factors affect the species richness and abundance of ants inhabiting arid and semiarid zones. We evaluated how soil surface temperature, texture, percentage of surface coarse fragments, and vegetation affected the composition, diversity, and distribution of ants inhabiting a mosaic of environmental conditions in a semiarid zone in central Mexico. We captured 22 ant species at five sites studied, with the top of Cutac hill (1,750 m altitude) and Terrace 2 (1,376 m altitude) the richest sites with 10 species each. Based on redundancy analyses, the percentage of clay followed by the percentage of coarse fragments at the surface of the soil were the variables most related to the composition of ants in these communities. Percentage of clay ranged from 16 to 26 and was positively related to abundance of Pheidole sp. 1 and negatively related to abundance of Dorymyrmex bureni Trager (R-2 = 0.76, P = 0.04; R-2 = 0.86, P = 0.02, respectively), whereas percentage of soil surface coarse fragments ranged from 0.8 to 59 and were negatively correlated to Pheidole sp. 1 (R-2 = 0.76, P = 0.05), but positively correlated to abundance of Brachymyrmex sp. (R-2 = 0.86, P = 0.06). When ants were analyzed by functional group, vegetative structure (ranging from 109 to 246 hits with vegetation) and percentage of coarse fragments in the soil were most correlated with their distribution. Although results of the redundancy analyses were not statistically significant, preliminary analysis of variables might explain the composition and distribution of an ant community. We suggested that soil characteristics might be important for explaining ant distribution and community composition.