Abstract
With the increase in urbanization globally, there is an increased need to understand the ecology of forest fragments in urban and urbanizing landscapes. Although urban forests are known to be relatively lacking in plants whose seeds are dispersed by ants, little is known about the effects of urbanization on the community composition and behaviour of forest dwelling ants. Ant communities in forest fragments along an urban–rural gradient were described using a rapid quadrat search technique and multivariate analysis. Interactions between the ants and seeds of the myrmecochorous Viola pubescens within a subset of these forests were described using a series of cafeteria experiments. Urbanization was found to be associated with changes in microhabitat characteristics and a concomitant simplification of the ant community. Despite this, the removal rate of V. pubescens seeds actually increased in urban forests, which may be a result of the foraging behaviour of the remaining species.
Notes
Although M. detritinodis is considered to be a defunct species name (Bolton 1995), this name is expected to be resurrected in an upcoming revision of the genus (A. Francoeur, personal communication) Specimens were identified as M. detritinodis using these newly identified characteristics.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the landowners, including the City of Winnipeg and Province of Manitoba, for providing access to their properties; Kevin Jacobs, Megan Ostrum, Sara Tosczak, and Pam Wong for assistance with field research and André Francoeur and Bill Preston for assistance with ant identification. This manuscript benefited from comments by two anonymous reviewers on an earlier draft. This research was supported by funds from the National Science and Engineering Research Council and Manitoba Conservation.
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Thompson, B., McLachlan, S. The effects of urbanization on ant communities and myrmecochory in Manitoba, Canada. Urban Ecosyst 10, 43–52 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-006-0013-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-006-0013-4