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• Autor(a) principal: Silvestre, Rogério
• Data de Publicação: 2001
• Outros Autores: Silva, Rogério Rosa da
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biotemas (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/biotemas/article/view/21708

In the present work, the ant community sampled in the "Estação Ecológica Jataí" in Luiz Antônio country, an ecological reserve in São Paulo State, is classified in guilds. The species groups revealed, and their function in the ecosystem, are related with the possibility of their utilization in monitoring programs. The guilds are composed on the basis of taxonomy, trophic preference, nidification habits, foraging and recruitment strategies, behavioral patterns observerd in interespecific interactions, size of workers, readiness of movement and estimated mature colony population. The results suggest that each functional group could be selected according to each set of ecological conditions involved, instead of considering in ecological evaliuations a single species or the total ant community in each locality. A cluster analysis revealed the formation of 14 guilds in this community, composed of 123 ant species, registered by quantitative and qualitative methods. These guilds were as follows: nomads, small dolichoderines with massive recruitment, small opportunists with big colonies, small generalist myrmicines, patrollers, leaf cutters, cryptics, large predators, soil and vegetation aggressive myrmicines, litter-dominant myrmicines, nectar-feed dolichoderines, minimum-vegetation specialists, cephalotines and fungus growers.