Canopy ant diversity assessment in the fragmented rainforest of Sabah, East Malaysia

抄録

A study on the canopy ant fauna was carried out at a selective logging area in the Danum Valley Concession Area of Sabah, in East Malaysia. Ants were collected from four single and isolated Shorea johorensis trees (their crowns are separated by sufficient gaps from other trees). Three sampling techniques were employed: hand sampling, branch clipping, and baited pitfal ltrapping. The firs ttwo methods were carried out in tree crowns that had been cut down, while the third method was done on the ground. Pitfall trapping was employed to eliminate ground-level ants around the tree from the species list of tree crown ants. A total of 160 species (4889 individuals) in 35 genera belonging to 6 subfamilies was collected from canopy strata of the four trees. Among all species collected in this study, only two were common to the four trees .The similarit yin species composition between trees was very low (C = 0.09 to 0.26). However, the species diversity in each tree proved relatively high (H'= 2.56 to 3.09). The effect of canopy fragmentation on ant fauna is discussed.