Author:
Englisch, T., Steiner, F.M. & Schlick-Steiner, B.C.

Year:
2005

DOI:
10.25849/myrmecol.news_007:061

Title:
Fine-scale grassland assemblage analysis in Central Europe: ants tell another story than plants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae; Spermatophyta)

Journal:
Myrmecological News

Volume:
7

Pages:
61-67

URL:
www.myrmecologicalnews.org

Keywords:
Community ecology, conservation biology, evenness, assemblage similarity, spatial species turnover, surrogacy, ants, vascular plants, temperate grassland, Central Europe.

Abstract:
We address whether vascular plants can serve as a surrogate for ants in fine-scale assemblage studies by investigating assemblages of four plots of a dry steppe habitat in eastern Austria. We found that ants drew another picture than plants with respect to evenness, assemblage similarity, meta-similarity between single assemblage similarity matrices, and spatial species turnover. Ant data was more robust to data transformation than plant data. Differences between plant and ant assemblages levelled when data were reduced to presence-absence mode. We suspect that, in general, the correlation between plant and ant assemblages may be higher for coarse-scale studies involving pronounced ecological differences between habitats.

Publisher:
The Austrian Society of Entomofaunistics

ISSN:
Print: 1994-4136 - Online: 1997-3500