A Study of Two Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Sampling Methods in Tropical Rain Forest

Abstract

The effectiveness of two ant sampling methods, i e , pitfall and yellow-pan traps in three forest habitats in Sungai Lalang Forest Resenre, Malaysia were investigated. A total of nine sub-families were captured using both methods, namely Ponerime, Mymicime, Dolichoderime, Cerapachyme, Pseudomynnicinae, Fomicinae, Aenictime, Dovlinae and Leptanilime. More Ponerinae indwiduals were collectedusq pitfall trap whle more Dolichoderiane were collected using yellow-pantrap. Pitfall trap collected hgher number of indwiduals (31,501) than yellow-pan trap (1,963 individuals), which indicated that pitfall trap was relatively an effective method for estimating the species abundance over the yellow-pan trap. Even though less number of indwiduals were collected by yellow-pan trap, this method evidently caught a more diverse of ant species compared to pitfall trap. This indcated that yellow-pan trap is relatively a better method for estimating the diversity over the pitfall trap. Results indcated that none of the tested sampling methods has an advantage over the other in collecting ant. Thus, the use of all suitable sampling methods for certain habitats is still considered the best suggestion in order to get a representative sampling of ant species. Key words: Ground ant, diversity, pitfall, yellow-pan