Ant Survey, Alice Mulga SuperSite, Core 1 ha, 2015

Ants are Australia’s dominant faunal group in terms of biomass and energy flow. They occupy all trophic levels, act as ecosystem engineers, feature in many mutualistic interactions with plants, and are a key food resource for many vertebrates. Ants are also Australia’s best studied insect group in terms of biogeography and community dynamics. They are the most widely used invertebrate bio-indicators in environmental assessment and monitoring. Ants were collected in 2015 and stored in ethanol for taxonomic assessment.

蚂蚁是澳大利亚就生物量与能量流动而言占主导地位的动物类群。它们占据所有营养级（trophic levels），扮演生态系统工程师（ecosystem engineers）的角色，参与诸多与植物的互利共生互作（mutualistic interactions），同时也是众多脊椎动物（vertebrates）的关键食物资源。
就生物地理学（biogeography）与群落动力学（community dynamics）研究而言，蚂蚁也是澳大利亚被研究得最为深入的昆虫类群，同时是环境评估与监测（environmental assessment and monitoring）领域应用最广泛的无脊椎动物生物指示物（invertebrate bio-indicators）。
本数据集的蚂蚁样本采集于2015年，以乙醇（ethanol）保存，用于分类学鉴定（taxonomic assessment）。