Ant species collected in Ordway-Swisher Biological Station sandhill habitat (2017-2018)

This project was conducted in management unit B-4 at Ordway-Swisher Biological Station (FL, USA). Data were collected on ant communities in burned and unburned areas, both before and following a prescribed burn that occurred over half of the experimental area on July 24th, 2017. Ants were collected via leaf litter sifting and baiting with either 1) mixtures of tuna and honey or 2) Crotalaria rotundifolia seeds. Additional bycatch ants were identified from ground beetle pitfall samples in adjacent sandhill habitat collected from May through September 2017 by the National Ecological Observatory Network. These data were collected to characterize the ant community in longleaf sandhill habitat, determine which species participate in seed dispersal, and investigate how these ants and ant-seed interactions are affected by prescribed fire management.