| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 生物學系 === 103 === The arboreal ant community structure has specific effects on the forest from the growth of an individual tree to the whole ecosystem. However, there is no research about ant communities in the vertical structure of natural forest to date in Taiwan. This study set up a 0.36 ha (60×60m) sample plot at the Lienhuachih 25 ha Forest Dynamics Plot in Yuchi Township, Nantou County. We collected by Winkler bag, ground pitfall trap, and circle trunk pitfall traps set at different heights of the main trunk including 1m, 4m and the canopy on 40 trees belonging to 8 tree species. The sampling was carried out once every two months continuing for a year to have an overview of the ant communities in the vertical structure of the forest. A total of 72 species, 36 genera belonging to 10 subfamilies of ants were identified. There were 26 species recorded in ground pitfall trap and 31 species in Winkler bag. Two methods compensate for each other because of the low species similarity when investigating terrestrial ants. The circle trunk pitfall trap recorded 46 species, and 29 species among them were only collected on the trees taking up around 40 % of the total ant species, but we did not record special species distributing only in the canopy. The arboreal ant species distribution is mainly affected by food resource, physical structures and heights of trees. These factors shape arboreal ant assemblages at different layers of the forest vertical structure. We also discover that the arboreal ant, Dolichoderus thoracicus, which formerly distributed in disturbed places now invades natural forests by human-made facilities. This forms a competitive pressure for native arboreal ants and has strongly changed the arboreal ant assemblages. This influence to the whole forest ecosystem needs further estimation and more attention in the future.
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