In a desert city, parks are an oasis for ant diversity and abundance

As the land area covered by cities keeps on increasing, research on the possibility of using urban spaces as sites for biodiversity conservation has become necessary and relevant. The development of cities produces novel habitats that might have the potential to function as refuges for threatened species. We studied the ant assemblages in two of these environments in Tucson, Arizona: small urban parks and undeveloped land immersed in the urban matrix. We also surveyed the ants in nearby desert areas in order to have a natural reference for comparing these assemblages. Ants are ideal organisms for the study of processes involving biodiversity due to their diversity, ubiquity and high abundance in most land environments. While natural desert and undeveloped land have similar ant diversity and abundance, parks contain much higher levels of these parameters. This is likely a result of the favorable conditions that exists within parks; including the constant supply of water through irrigation. Due to their high ant diversity, parks might provide a suitable environment for vulnerable ant species. In the other hand, the high ant abundance in parks suggests that they might also be reservoirs for pest ants or might allow otherwise harmless species to behave as pests within them.