Species Diversity and Composition of Terrestrial Ant Communities in Tropical Agricultural System: A Case Study of Rayong Province, Eastern Thailand

The objectives of this research work were to evaluate the species diversity and to investigate composition of ground-foraging ant communities in tropical agricultural areas which include durian orchard (DO), mangosteen orchard (MO), and rubber plantation (RP) in Rayong Province, eastern Thailand, throughout October 2015 to September 2016. A total of 36,309 ants (27,263 in the DO, 5,409 in the MO, and 3,637 in the RP) collected using pitfall traps belongs to 36 species, 29 genera and 7 subfamilies. The highest number of species was found in the MO (29 species, 28 genera and 6 subfamilies), followed by the DO (21 species, 20 genera and 5 subfamilies), and the RP (17 species, 16 genera and 6 subfamilies), respectively. According to measures of species diversity, the results show that with respect to the average values of the Shannon Diversity Index ( H '), the Simpson’s Index of Diversity ( D ') and the Evenness index ( E '), all measurements of the mangosteen orchard are the highest followed by the rubber plantation and the durian orchard, respectively. The most abundant ant species in each location was Carebara affinis (Jerdon, 1851) (in the DO), Anoplolepis gracilipes (Smith, 1857) (in the MO), and Pheidole sp.               (in the RP). In addition, the Sorensen’s similarity coefficient was highest at 64% between the durian and mangosteen orchards whereas the lowest at 61% between the mangosteen orchard and the rubber plantation. All resulted presented here highlighted that the species diversity, abundance, and species composition of ground-foragingant communities were varied among three different agricultural systems. Keywords : ant, diversity, durian orchard, mangosteen orchard, rubber plantation