Abstracts of the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Japan

Ant fauna was investigated by pitfall traps on the ground of a small yard ground in Bogor Botanic Garden, West Java, Indonesia. Regular sampling was carried out weekly or biweekly from March, 2000 to November, 2003. In all, 29439 ant individuals, represented by 66 species in 24 genera, 15 tribes and 5 subfamilies were collected. Among five subfamilies collected, Myrmicinae was most dominant with the largest number of tribes (7, 47 %), genera (9, 38 %), species (26, 39 %) and individuals (19573, 66 %). Formicinae was the second largest in term of number of species, followed by Ponerinae, Aenictinae and Dolichoderinae. Seasonal fluctuation of the ants during the study period was as follows: The total number of ant species collected per census ranged from 5 (7.6 %) to 20 (33.3.3%). The total number of individuals for all species combined fluctuated from 70 to 1756. Seasonal change in the number of individual among abundant species showed different types of fluctuation: (i) constantly abundant (Pheidole plagiaria), (ii) constantly common (Odontoponera denticulata), (iii) abundant at the beginning and then decreased (Anoplolepis gracilipes), (iv) sudden high peaks (Aenictus sp. 2 and Pheidolegeton sp. 1 ).

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Satoyama areas, mosaic of natural environments making up 40 % of natural land in Japan, have been decreasing rapidly due to abandonment and depopulation. The areas account for approximately half of sites, where endangered species are found, and maintain a degree of complexity and diversity of plants and animals. These areas have been actively investigated in order to obtain ecological information necessary for the restoration. Arthropods facilitate a number of different soil processes, therefore assays of soil arthropod abundance and community composition are useful in developing the ideas for forest management and land use (Moldenke et al., 2000). This study aims to observe the change in the diversity and structure of ground arthropod communities during the restoration of satoyama areas surrounding Kakuma Campus of Kanazawa University. The areas host various habitats including forests, grassland, paddy fields, ponds and marshes. Pitfall traps, partially filled with 10% ethylene glycol, were left open for two days on a monthly-basis sampling from May to October 2004. A total number of 21,870 individuals belonging to 3 orders of Crustacea, 3 orders of Myriapoda, 3 orders of Arachnidae and 12 orders of Insecta were trapped. Analysis of samples using DCA showed quite clear division between the forest samples and wetland ones. Variation in arthropod communities among forest samples was higher than that of wetland ones. This is likely due to the difference in the types of dominant vegetation in each site. Samples from ponds and paddy fields in Kitadan were slightly different from those in two other similar sites, Minamidan and Zontan. Presumably because Kitadan has been changed by human activities while Minamidan and Zontan have not.

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