Patterns of diversity, occupancy and abundance of ants on jack pine dominated sand hills

Ants play an important role in seed dispersal, soil turnover, and as predators or prey. Despite their ecological importance, little is known about ant species or their habitat associations in northern ecosystems. My objective was to examine how habitat composition and structure affected occupancy, abundance, and diversity of ant species in sand hill ecosystems of central Alberta, Canada. Pitfall trapping was used to sample ants within 40, 0.1 hectare (20 m x 50 m) plots during the summers of 2009 and 2010. Sampling occurred twice a year and with ten, 24 hour pitfall trap (subsamples) used per plot and session for a total of 1600 traps. In total, 38 ant species were identified, representing ~40% of the known ant species in Alberta. Both canopy cover and vegetation ground cover played an important role in determining ant species occupancy, abundance and diversity.