Ecological sampling of ants: competition and biodiversity.

摘要: Ants are among the most dominant taxa in terrestrial ecosystems, despite their small individual size. Furthermore, they a hyperdiverse family with an estimated 20,000 species. Together, these two properties make ants model for ecological interactions (specifically competition) and biodiversity estimation. Although there many means of measuring diversity, common myrmecologists baiting pitfall trapping. Pitfall traps provide almost unbiased estimate ground foraging community, whereas allows estimation dominance competitive outcomes between This protocol describes approach to assay both abundance (pitfall traps) (baits) same community.