Restoration and ant diversity to post-plantation forestry grasslands

Abstract

There has been a widespread assessment of the capacity of grasslands to restore after several forms of disturbance. In South Africa forestry is a significant habitat disturbance within the Eastern Highveld grasslands where this study was conducted. The study compared ant communities between disturbed grasslands that have been rehabilitated after pine forestry and undisturbed grasslands. Ant sampling was conducted using pitfall traps within rehabilitated sites of age 10 years to 40 years and undisturbed grassland sites. We expected that exposure to pine plantations would result in remarkable differences in ant species richness, assemblages and abundance. A total of 17 genera and 31 morphospecies were collected; 25 species within the rehabilitated and 22 species from the undisturbed grasslands. The sites did not show any significant differences in their species richness, although they had distinctive species assemblages. Ant diversity showed recovery with increasing age after pine with older sites (38 years and 40 years) showing higher diversity compared to the younger sites especially the 10 year old site. Copyright