Consistent successional trajectories of ant species richness, composition, and functional traits on post-mining sites in European deciduous forest

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F60077344%3A_____%2F25%3A00637191" target="_blank" >RIV/60077344:_____/25:00637191 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/44555601:13520/25:43899667 RIV/00216208:11310/25:10500196

Result on the web

<a href="https://myrmecologicalnews.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=1647&Itemid=444" target="_blank" >https://myrmecologicalnews.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=1647&Itemid=444</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.25849/myrmecol.news_035:061" target="_blank" >10.25849/myrmecol.news_035:061</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Consistent successional trajectories of ant species richness, composition, and functional traits on post-mining sites in European deciduous forest

Original language description

Since ants are a prominent taxon of terrestrial food webs and significant ecosystem engineers, understanding ant community succession is important to understand ecosystem recovery after disturbance. We studied the succession of ant communities on brown coal mine spoil heaps in mixed deciduous forests of NW Czech Republic by censusing multiple sites in which assemblages differed in age between 1 and 50 years since initial spoil heap formation. We compared the species composition, ant traits, and habitat characteristics of chronosequences of reclaimed and unreclaimed sites and undisturbed reference sites in the surrounding landscape in the years 2001 and 2020. Although habitat characteristics such as canopy and bare soil cover were important, successional age was the single strongest predictor of ant species richness and composition, suggesting a similar successional trajectory of sites. The number of ant species, but not their total abundance, increased during succession. The composition of the ant community changed towards that of the referential surrounding landscape, where less aggressive species were common. During the early successional stages, the common species had queens which establish colonies independently by enclosing themselves in a founding chamber and relying on stored resources (claustral mode). During later successional stages, the common species had queens which establish colonies by leaving the founding chamber to forage for food (semi-claustral mode). Species of social parasites were also more common in late versus early successional stages. These results suggest that resource availability to ants increases during succession, which may enhance species coexistence. The rate of change in ant species richness and composition was high at young sites and slowed down with site age. As forest stands aged through the successional sequence, the abundance of forest ant species increased. We did not record differences in species richness between reclaimed and unreclaimed sites. Eurytopic species were the most numerous, but their abundance did not change significantly during succession. Collectively, these results suggest that as forest stands age and canopies close, ant species richness and composition consistently change, with potentially more resources and more complex species interactions in later stages.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10618 - Ecology

Project

Result was created during the realization of more than one project. More information in the Projects tab.

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Myrmecological News

ISSN

1994-4136

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

35

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2025

Country of publishing house

AT - AUSTRIA

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

61-71

UT code for WoS article

001510228400001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105016831856