Date of Graduation
1998
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
Ants in the George Washington (Augusta Co. VA, USA) and Monongahela National Forests (Pocahontas Co. WV, USA) were studied using pitfall traps and bait traps to assess the effect of Bacillus thuringiensis var kurstaki (Foray 48F) and gypsy moth nuclear polyhedrosis virus (Gypchek) application on ant communities and the association of habitat characteristics with ants. Ant samples were also compared by forest, sampling year and season, sampling method, and sampling micro-habitat. Pitfall traps were operated for 45 weeks during summers of 1995 to 1997. Bait traps were set up and collected 42 times during the same period. A total of 31,732 ants were collected from pitfall traps and 54,694 ants were collected from bait traps. They belonged to 4 subfamilies, 17 genera, and 33 species. The ant species richness, diversity, abundance, and species composition did not change as a result of the treatments. Both ant abundance and species richness were correlated with soil moisture, elevation, and vegetation structure of the plots. The correlation was stronger for species richness than for abundance. More mesic and higher elevation plots had fewer ants and lower species richness. Ants from the two sampling methods showed different relative abundance and species richness. Pitfall traps caught more species than bait traps. There was no clear seasonal trend in overall ant activities during the sampling season. Comparisons between sampling years showed a very similar species composition and species evenness. There was a significant decrease in ant abundance in 1997, which may have been caused by over-trapping. Some rare species did not appear in the second and third year of sampling. Ant communities on ridges had one more species than those in valleys in the George Washington National Forest. The difference in ant species richness between ridges and valleys was more distinct in the Monongahela National Forest, which had 5 more species on ridges than in valleys. The ants in valleys were also distributed less evenly. The abundance of ants between ridges and valleys was similar.
Recommended Citation
Wang, Changlu, "Relationship between habitat and ant communities in oak-dominated Appalachian forests treated with microbial pesticides." (1998). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 9982.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/9982