Strong but taxon-specific responses of termites and wood-nesting ants to forest regeneration in Borneo

Land use change is accelerating globally at the expense of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Invertebrates are numerically dominant and functionally important in old growth tropical rain forests but highly susceptible to the adverse effects of forest degradation and fragmentation. Ants (Formicidae) and termites (Blattodea: Termitoidae) perform crucial ecosystem services. Here, the potential effects of anthropogenic disturbance on ant and termite communities in dead wood are investigated. Community composition, generic richness, and occupancy rates of ants and termites were compared among two old growth sites (Danum Valley and Maliau Basin) and one twice-logged site (the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems’ (SAFE) Project), in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Occupancy was measured as the number of ant or termite encounters (1) per deadwood items, and (2) per deadwood volume, and acts as surrogates for relative abundance (or generic richness). Termites had a lower wood-occupancy per vol...全球土地利用变化速率不断加快，正以牺牲生物多样性和生态系统功能为代价。无脊椎动物在原始热带雨林中不仅数量占据主导，且功能举足轻重，但极易受到森林退化与片段化带来的负面影响。蚂蚁（蚁科，Formicidae）与白蚁（蜚蠊目：白蚁下目，Blattodea: Termitoidae）可提供至关重要的生态系统服务。本研究围绕人为干扰对枯木内蚂蚁与白蚁群落的潜在影响展开探究。研究比较了马来西亚婆罗洲沙巴地区两处原始林样地（达努谷Danum Valley与马里厄盆地Maliau Basin）与一处经两次择伐的样地——改变森林生态系统稳定性项目（Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems’ Project，简称SAFE项目）——中蚂蚁与白蚁的群落组成、属丰富度（generic richness）与占据率。占据率以两项指标测算：一是每枯木样本的蚂蚁或白蚁发现次数，二是每单位枯木体积的蚂蚁或白蚁发现次数，以此作为相对丰度（或属丰富度）的替代指标。白蚁的单位体积木材占据率较……