Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:33:42.624Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An insight into the quality of sacred groves – an island habitat – using leaf-litter ants as an indicator in a context of urbanization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2021

T.P. Rajesh ,
Anjana P. Unni ,
U. Prashanth Ballullaya ,
K. Manoj  and
Palatty Allesh Sinu Open the ORCID record for Palatty Allesh Sinu [Opens in a new window]
T.P. Rajesh*
Affiliation:
Central University of Kerala, Periya 671316, Kasaragod, Kerala, India
Anjana P. Unni
Affiliation:
Central University of Kerala, Periya 671316, Kasaragod, Kerala, India
U. Prashanth Ballullaya
Affiliation:
Central University of Kerala, Periya 671316, Kasaragod, Kerala, India
K. Manoj
Affiliation:
Central University of Kerala, Periya 671316, Kasaragod, Kerala, India
Palatty Allesh Sinu*
Affiliation:
Central University of Kerala, Periya 671316, Kasaragod, Kerala, India
*
Author for Correspondence:*T.P. Rajesh and Palatty Allesh Sinu, Emails: rajeshbichu@gmail.com and sinu@cukerala.ac.in
Author for Correspondence:*T.P. Rajesh and Palatty Allesh Sinu, Emails: rajeshbichu@gmail.com and sinu@cukerala.ac.in
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Sacred groves (SGs) of India are islets of forests providing ecosystem and spiritual services to man. Studies suggest that SGs are deteriorating on their quality due to urbanization, invasive species, land-use change, and religious modernization. We explored diversity, community, and abundance of overall and different functional groups of litter ants, including Anoplolepis gracilipes – an invasive ant – on paired SG-neighbouring home garden (HG) sites in rural and urban landscape to (a) assess the quality of SGs and (b) examine whether the variation in ant community of the two habitats was predicted by urbanization and abundance of A. gracilipes. We considered species and local contribution to β-diversity to identify species and sites crucial for conservation of sites. Abundance and richness of overall ants, proportional trap incidence of species, and abundance of A. gracilipes were similar on SG and HG, but species diversity and abundance of certain ant functional groups were higher on SG. Ant community of SG was different from HG, but was not affected by urbanization. A. gracilipes and rural SGs contributed the most to β diversity. A. gracilipes gave little pressure on native ant community. The study concludes that SGs, despite invaded by A. gracilipes, have potential for conserving biodiversity.

Keywords

Sacred groveantsisland habitatAnoplolepis gracilipesspecies diversitycultural forestinvasive speciesurbanization
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , March 2021 , pp. 82 - 90
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

These authors contributed equally to this work.

References

Allen, CR, Birge, HE, Slater, J and Wiggers, E (2017) The invasive ant, Solenopsis invicta, reduces herpetofauna richness and abundance. Biological Invasions 19, 713–722.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andersen, AN (1995) A classification of Australian ant communities, based on functional groups which parallel plant life-forms in relation to stress and disturbance. Journal of Biogeography 22, 15–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, M, Andersen, AN and Ibanez, T (2013) Invasive ants as back-seat drivers of native ant diversity decline in New Caledonia. Biological Invasions 15, 2311–2331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhagwat, SA, Kushalappa, CG, Williams, PH and Brown, ND (2005) The role of informal protected areas in maintaining biodiversity in the Western Ghats of India. Ecology and Society 10, 8–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhagwat, SA, Nogué, S and Willis, KJ (2014) Cultural drivers of reforestation in tropical forest groves of the Western Ghats of India. Forest Ecology and Management 329, 393–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhagwat, SA and Rutte, C (2006) Sacred groves: potential for biodiversity management. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 4, 519–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bharti, H, Guénard, B, Bharti, M and Economo, EP (2016) An updated checklist of the ants of India with their specific distributions in Indian states (Hymenoptera, Formicidae). ZooKeys 551, 1–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bharti, H, Sharma, YP, Bharti, M and Pfeiffer, M (2013) Ant species richness, endemicity and functional groups, along an elevational gradient in the Himalayas. Asian Myrmecology 5, 79–101.Google Scholar
Bingham, CT (1903) The fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Hymenoptera 2, 506 pp. London: Ants and Cuckoo- Wasps.Google Scholar
Bolton, B (1994) Identification guide to the ant genera of the world. Cambridge, USA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Boraiah, KT, Vasudeva, R, Bhagwat, SA and Kushalappa, CG (2003) Do informally managed sacred groves have higher richness and regeneration of medicinal plants than state-managed reserve forests? Current science 84, 804–808.Google Scholar
Bossart, JL and Antwi, JB (2016) Limited erosion of genetic and species diversity from small forest patches: Sacred forest groves in an Afrotropical biodiversity hotspot have high conservation value for butterflies. Biological Conservation 198, 122–134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, WL Jr (2000) Diversity of ants. In Agosti, D, Majer, JD, Alonso, LE, Schultz, TR (eds), Ants. Standard Methods for Measuring and Monitoring Biodiversity. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, pp. 45–79.Google Scholar
Brown, N, Bhagwat, S and Watkinson, S (2006) Macrofungal Diversity in Fragmented and Disturbed Forests of the Western Ghats of India. Journal of Applied Ecology 43, 11–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buczkowski, G and Bennett, GW (2008) Aggressive interactions between the introduced Argentine ant, Linepithema humile and the native odorous house ant, Tapinoma sessile. Biological Invasions 10, 1001–1011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buczkowski, G and Richmond, DS (2012) The effect of urbanization on ant abundance and diversity: a temporal examination of factors affecting biodiversity. PloS One 7, e41729.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chandrashekara, UM and Sankar, S (1998) Ecology and management of sacred groves in Kerala, India. Forest Ecology and Management 112, 165–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colwell, R (2005) EstimateS: Statistical Estimation of Species Richness and Shared Species from Samples. Version 7.5. Available at http://purl.oclc.org/estimates Google Scholar
Courchamp, F, Fournier, A, Bellard, C, Bertelsmeier, C, Bonnaud, E, Jeschke, JM and Russell, JC (2017) Invasion Biology: Specific Problems and Possible Solutions. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 32, 13–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Croci, S, Butet, A, Georges, A, Aguejdad, R and Clergeau, P (2008) Small urban woodlands as biodiversity conservation hot-spot: a multi-taxon approach. Landscape Ecology 23, 1171–1186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuautle, M, Vergara, CH and Badano, EI (2016) Comparison of ant community diversity and functional group composition associated to land use change in a seasonally dry oak forest. Neotropical entomology 45, 170–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Da Silva, PG and Hernández, MIM (2014) Local and regional effects on community structure of dung beetles in a Mainland-Island scenario. Plos One 9, e111883.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Decher, J (1997) Conservation, small mammals, and the future of sacred groves in West Africa. Biodiversity & Conservation 6, 1007–1026.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Del Toro, I, Ribbons, RR and Ellison, AM (2015) Ant-mediated ecosystem functions on a warmer planet: effects on soil movement, decomposition and nutrient cycling. Journal of Animal Ecology 84, 1233–1241.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Didham, R, Tylianakis, J, Gemmell, N, Rand, T and Ewers, R (2007) Interactive effects of habitat modification and species invasion on native species decline. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 22, 489–496.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dorrestein, A, Todd, CM, Westcott, DA, Martin, JM and Welbergen, JA (2019) Impacts of an invasive ant species on roosting behavior of an island endemic flying-fox. Biotropica 51, 75–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dray, S, Bauman, D, Blanchet, G, Borcard, D, Clappe, S, Guenard, G, Jombart, T, Larocque, G, Legendre, , P, Madi, N, and Wagner, HH (2018) Adespatial: Multivariate Multiscale Spatial Analysis. R package version 0.2-0.Google Scholar
Drescher, J, Feldhaar, H and Blüthgen, N (2011) Interspecific aggression and resource monopolization of the invasive ant Anoplolepis gracilipes in Malaysian Borneo. Biotropica 43,93–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellison, AM (2012) Out of Oz: Opportunities and challenges for using ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) as biological indicators in north-temperate cold biomes. Myrmecological News 17, 105–119.Google Scholar
Ellison, AM, Record, S, Arguello, A and Gotelli, N J (2007) Rapid inventory of the antassemblage in a temperate hardwood forest: Species composition and assessmentof sampling methods. Environmental Entomology 36, 766–775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gadgil, M (2014) Western Ghats ecology expert panel: a play in five acts. Economic and Political Weekly, 38–50.Google Scholar
Gadgil, M and Vartak, VD (1976) The sacred groves of Western Ghats in India. Economic Botany 30, 152–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gómez, C and Oliveras, J (2003) Can the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile Mayr) replace native ants in myrmecochory? Acta Oecologica 24, 47–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, SP, Freidenfelds, NA, Mccormick, GL and Langkilde, T (2012) The impacts of invaders: Basal and acute stress glucocorticoid profiles and immune function in native lizards threatened by invasive ants. General and Comparative Endocrinology 176, 400–408.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grimm, NB, Chapin, FS III, Bierwagen, B, Gonzalez, P, Groffman, PM, Luo, Y, Melton, F, Nadelhoffer, K, Pairis, A and Raymond, PA (2013) The impacts of climate change on ecosystem structure and function. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 11, 474–482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hariraveendra, M, Rajesh, TP, Unni, AP and Sinu, PA (2020) Prey–predator interaction suggests sacred groves are not functionally different from neighbouring used lands. Journal of Tropical Ecology 36, 220–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heino, J and Grönroos, M (2017) Exploring species and site contributions to beta diversity in stream insect assemblages. Oecologia 183, 151–160.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoffmann, BD, Luque, GM, Bellard, C, Holmes, ND and Donlan, CJ (2016) Improving invasive ant eradication as a conservation tool: a review. Biological Conservation 198, 37–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holway, DA, Lach, L, Suarez, AV, Tsutsui, ND and Case, TJ (2002) The causes and consequences of ant invasions. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 33, 181–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horák, J, Rom, J, Rada, P, Šafářová, L, Koudelková, J, Zasadil, P, Halda, JP and Holuša, J (2018) Renaissance of a rural artifact in a city with a million people: biodiversity responses to an agro-forestry restoration in a large urban traditional fruit orchard. Urban Ecosystems 21, 263–270.Google Scholar
Induchoodan, NC (1996) Ecological Studies of the Sacred Groves of Kerala. Ph.D. Thesis. Central University of Pondicherry.Google Scholar
Jamir, SA and Pandey, HN (2003) Vascular plant diversity in the sacred groves of Jaintia Hills in northeast India. Biodiversity & Conservation 12, 1497–1510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jana, P, Wotsa, K, Dasgupta, S and Todaria, NP (2018) Surface water quality in sacred groves of Garhwal Himalayan region, India. Current Science 114, 1105–1110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Júnior, EJB, Rocha, EC, Jesus, FG, Oliveira, MA and Araújo, MS (2020) Dry forest fragmentation in Brazilian cerrado and its effects on communities of ground foraging ants. Florida Entomologist 103, 384–391.Google Scholar
Khan, ML, Khumbongmayum, AD and Tripathi, RS (2008) The sacred groves and their significance in conserving biodiversity: an overview. International Journal of Ecology and Environmental Sciences 34, 277–291.Google Scholar
Kim, TN, Bartel, S, Wills, BD, Landis, DA and Gratton, C (2018) Disturbance differentially affects alpha and beta diversity of ants in tallgrass prairies. Ecosphere 9, e02399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, JR and Tschinkel, WR (2006) Experimental evidence that the introduced fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, does not competitively suppress co-occurring ants in a disturbed habitat. Journal of Animal Ecology 75, 1370–1378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kirk, W (1978) Town and country planning in ancient India according to Kautilya’s Arthasastra. Scottish Geographical Magazine 94, 67–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lach, L (2005) Interference and exploitation competition of three nectar-thieving invasive ant species. Insectes Sociaux 52, 257–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leal, IR, Filgueiras, BKC, Gomes, JP, Iannuzzi, L and Andersen, AN (2012) Effects of habitat fragmentation on ant richness and functional composition in Brazilian Atlantic forest. Biodiversity and Conservation 21, 1687–1701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legendre, P and De Cáceres, M (2013) Beta diversity as the variance of community data: dissimilarity coefficients and partitioning. Ecology Letters 16, 951–963.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lester, PJ and Gruber, MAM (2016) Booms, busts and population collapses in invasive ants. Biological Invasions 18, 3091–3101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manoj, K, Rajesh, TP, Prashanth Ballullaya, U, Meharabi, KM, Shibil, VK, Rajmohana, K and Sinu, PA (2017) Diversity of Platygastridae in leaf litter and understory layers of tropical rainforests of the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, India. Environmental Entomology 46, 685–692.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Meer, RKV (2019) Applied Myrmecology: A World Perspective. CRC Press. 765 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehrabi, Z, Slade, EM, Solis, A and Mann, DJ (2014) The importance of microhabitat for biodiversity sampling. PloS One 9, e114015.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Melliger, RL, Braschler, B, Rusterholz, H-P and Baur, B (2018) Diverse effects of degree of urbanisation and forest size on species richness and functional diversity of plants, and ground surface-active ants and spiders. PloS One 13, e0199245.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Myers, N, Mittermeier, RA, Mittermeier, CG, Da Fonseca, GAB and Kent, J (2000) Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403, 853–858.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Narendra, A, Gibb, H and Ali, TM (2011) Structure of ant assemblages in Western Ghats, India: role of habitat, disturbance and introduced species. Insect Conservation and diversity 4, 132–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naumann, K and Higgins, RJ (2015) The European fire ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) as an invasive species: impact on local ant species and other epigaeic arthropods. The Canadian Entomologist 147, 592–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ness, JH (2006) A mutualism’s indirect costs: the most aggressive plant bodyguards also deter pollinators. Oikos 113, 506–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ness, JH and Bronstein, JL (2004) The effects of invasive ants on prospective ant mutualists. Biological Invasions 6, 445–461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oksanen, J, Blanchet, FG, Friendly, M, Kindt, R, Legendre, P, McGlinn, D, Minchin, PR, O'Hara, RB, Simpson, GL, Solymos, P, Stevens, MHH, Szoecs, E and Wagner, H (2018) Vegan: Community Ecology Package. – R package ver 2.5-3. Available at http://CRAN.R-project.org/package= vegan Google Scholar
Oliveira Hagen, E, Hagen, O, Ibáñez-Álamo, JD, Petchey, OL and Evans, KL (2017) Impacts of urban areas and their characteristics on avian functional diversity. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 5, 84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ormsby, AA and Bhagwat, SA (2010) Sacred forests of India: a strong tradition of community-based natural resource management. Environmental Conservation 37, 320–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osuri, AM, Madhusudan, MD, Kumar, VS, Chengappa, SK, Kushalappa, CG and Sankaran, M (2014) Spatio-temporal variation in forest cover and biomass across sacred groves in a human-modified landscape of India’s Western Ghats. Biological Conservation 178, 193–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Philpott, SM and Armbrecht, I (2006) Biodiversity in tropical agroforests and the ecological role of ants and ant diversity in predatory function. Ecological Entomology 31, 369–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prashanth Ballullaya, U, Reshmi, KS, Rajesh, TP, Manoj, K, Lowman, M and Sinu, PA (2019) Stakeholder motivation for the conservation of sacred groves in south India: an analysis of environmental perceptions of rural and urban neighbourhood communities. Land Use Policy 89, 104213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qodri, A, Raffiudin, R and Noerdjito, WA (2016) Diversity and abundance of Carabidae and Staphylinidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) in four montane habitat types on Mt. Bawakaraeng, South Sulawesi. HAYATI Journal of Biosciences 23, 22–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajendraprasad, M (1995) The Floristic Structural and Functional Analysis of Sacred Groves of Kerala. Thiruvananthapuram.Google Scholar
Rajesh, TP, Prashanth Ballullaya, U, Surendran, P and Sinu, PA (2017) Ants indicate urbanization pressure in sacred groves of southwest India: a pilot study. Current Science 113, 317–322. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rajesh, TP, Prashanth Ballullaya, U, Unni, AP, Parvathy, S and Sinu, PA (2020) Interactive effects of urbanization and year on invasive and native ant diversity of sacred groves of South India. Urban Ecosystems 23, 1335–1348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rath, S and Ormsby, AA (2020) Conservation through Traditional Knowledge: a Review of Research on the Sacred Groves of Odisha, India. Human Ecology 48, 455–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, R, Chandran, MDS and Ramachandra, TV (2014) Biodiversity and ecological assessments of Indian sacred groves. Journal of Forestry Research 25, 21–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, R and Ramachandra, TV (2010) Small sacred groves in local landscape: are they really worthy for conservation? Current Science 98, 1178–1180.Google Scholar
Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) (2011) Report submitted to the Ministry Environment and Forests. Available at https://ruralindiaonline.org/library/resource/report-of-the-western-ghats-ecology-expert-panel/ (accessed on August 8, 2020).Google Scholar
Rivas-Arancibia, SP, Carrillo-Ruiz, H, Bonilla-Arce, A, Figueroa-Castro, DM and Andrés-Hernández, AR (2014) Effect of disturbance on the ant community in a semiarid region of central México. Applied Ecology and Environmental Research 12, 703–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocha-Ortega, M and Castaño-Meneses, G (2015) Effects of urbanization on the assemblage of ant species and guilds (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Queretaro, Mexico. Coordinators 121.Google Scholar
Rodriguez-Cabal, MA, Stuble, KL, Guénard, B, Dunn, RR and Sanders, NJ (2012) Disruption of ant-seed dispersal mutualisms by the invasive Asian needle ant (Pachycondyla chinensis). Biological Invasions 14, 557–565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinu, PA, Sibisha, VC, Nikhila Reshmi, MV, Reshmi, KS, Jasna, TV, Aswathi, K and Megha, PP (2017) Invasive ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) disrupts pollination in pumpkin. Biological Invasions 19, 2599–2607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suchitra, M., 2015. Sacred Groves of Kerala: From 10000 to 1200. Down to Earth. http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/sacred-groves-of-kerala-down-from-10000-to-1200-49070. Google Scholar
Tonkin, JD (2016) Exploring stream communities in a tropical biodiversity hotspot: biodiversity, regional occupancy, niche characteristics and environmental correlates. Biodivers Conservation 25, 975–993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warnes, MGR, Bolker, B, Bonebakker, L, Gentleman, R and Huber, W (2016) Package ‘gplots’. Various R Programming Tools for Plotting Data. Google Scholar
Williams, JL and Lucky, A (2020) Non-native and Invasive Nylanderia Crazy Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the World: Integrating Genomics to Enhance Taxonomic Preparedness. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 113, 318–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zacharias, M and Dharma Rajan, P (2004) Discothyrea sringerensis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) a new ant species from India. Zootaxa 484, 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Rajesh et al. supplementary material

Tables S1-S2 and Figures S1-S3

Download Rajesh et al. supplementary material(File)
File 2.1 MB