Riqueza e composição de formigas em uma área de transição entre o Cerrado e Pantanal

Abstract

Ants are distributed worldwide, with the exception of the poles, and occupy several niches. The Cerrado has approximately 997 species of ants, while the Pantanal, the largest floodplain on the planet, has 610 species. The State of Mato Grosso do Sul has several transition areas between domains. The objectives of this work were to carry out a structured inventory of ants in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, including the Cerrado and the Pantanal, and to analyze if Morro do Paxixi acts as a transition area between the Cerrado and Pantanal domains, testing the hypothesis that Morro do Paxixi, by acting as a transition area, will present greater richness of ant species than the Cerrado and Pantanal and that it will share most of the species found in the two domains. In each domain, 30 plots of 10m² were sampled, where 4 sardine baits were installed in the soil and 4 in the vegetation in each plot, for one hour. To analyze the species diversity in each of the domains and in the transition area, the Shannon diversity index was used and to estimate the richness found in each of the areas, the Jackkinife 1st order richness estimator was used. In addition, to evaluate the species composition between the three sampled areas, Non-Parametric Multidimensional Scaling (NMDS) was performed using the Jaccard similarity index and Similarity Analysis (Anosim). Eighty-two ant species were obtained, distributed in 17 genera and six subfamilies. The NMDS was significant (Stress=0.5564) and Anosim (p=0.0001). Thus, it is possible to conclude that Morro do Paxixi acts as a transition area, sharing species with both domains.