Species composition of the ground-dwelling ant community was sampled for an undisturbed primary rainforest and a 15-year-old secondary rainforest at Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Amazonian Ecuador. Ants were collected using pitfall traps, ground sampling, and baiting transects during February and March of 2002. Samples were identified to species or morphospecies. Overlap of species composition, tested with Jaccard’s index, was significantly higher within the two sites than between, suggesting that species in the secondary forest are not a subset of primary species, but an unique assemblage. Dominance of specific subfamilies, genera, and species was analyzed and compared with life history traits. It is clear that 15 years of re-growth produces a very distinct ant community from that in a primary forest.
Species 1: Hymenoptera Formicidae
Keywords: Dominance, Overlap
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